Final blog

Genetic engineering, North Korea, and torture were all interesting topics that we learned about this year. My favorite book was 1984 because it had a good story and seemed like something that could really happen in the future. I also really liked The Prince because it was interesting to think about government from the perspective of a prince. My least favorite book was Three Cups of Tea because it was way too repetitive. One thing that would improve the class would be to do fewer packets because they are really long and not very interesting to read. I don't really learn much from them or retain the information I have read.

North Korea articles

The article "A New Policy of Malign Neglect" by Mitchell B. Reiss said that the U.S should deal with North Korea by first telling North Korea that we are willing to resume the Six Party Talks again, but we should be patient and not try to bribe them into coming. Second, we should strengthen our ties with our allies in that region, South Korea and Japan. Third, Reiss suggests that we should try to convince China to join the Proliferation Security Initiative and welcome South Korea into it. The other article, "Be Ready to Strike and Destroy North Korea's Missile Test" by Philip Zelikow, Zelikow says that we need to issue North Korea a warning that if they prepare to launch a missile, the U.S. will destroy it. If the U.S. does strike down a North Korean missile, other volatile countries will take notice. Both articles deal with the same problem, but the second article is much more aggressive than the first. I think that we should try to do what is suggested by Reiss because the U.S. is already involved in two wars right now.

Thin Gruel

The "Newspeak" in 1984 is not too far from the censorship that we currently have of our language and vocabulary in children's books and textbooks. In 1984, the government tries to censor not only words, but also people's thoughts and memories. To a lesser degree, that is also what is happening with our textbooks. Censors from both the political right and left pressure the publishers of textbooks to include certain things and exclude others. Textbook companies can't afford not to listen because too much controversy dooms books to financial failure and extinction. From the political right, fundamentalist Christians only want wholesome, traditional families to be portrayed. They want to ban anything that refers to disobedience, lying, family discord, witchcraft, or other values not in accordance with their religion. On the other side, leftists want to spread feminism, and they are highly active against any racism, ageism, and sexism. Protecting freedom of religion, promoting good morals, and presenting equality in textbooks is important, but both groups take it too far. Children should be exposed to all different religions; they don't have to give up their religious beliefs because they hear other beliefs. Textbook companies shouldn't try to fill quotas for how many males, females, racial groups, and ages are included in their books. They should present children with interesting stories with literary merit that will educate them. Books such as The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye should not be banned from school libraries, and textbooks should not be so highly censored. If we allow these things to be censored, before we know it, our world will be like the one in 1984.

1984 blog

1. The party mottos are War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. They are unusual because they don't make sense and say that opposites are the same.

2. Newspeak is the new language that the party is creating. The purpose of newspeak is to create new words and eliminate all the "extra" words, so that people can only think what the party wants them to think; therefore, there will be no more "thoughtcrime."

3. The party wants to get rid of synonyms and antonyms because it wants to get rid of different shades of meaning and stop people from truly thinking. Instead of good and bad, they will have good and ungood. Instead of excellent they will have plusgood or doubleplusgood.

4. The party controls history by going back and changing all newspaper, magazines, books, and other types of media to reflect the current events and views of the government. They do this so that it appears that Big Brother is always right, and so that the government can get rid of people and make it seem as though they never existed. They mess with people's memories so that they will only live in the moment and not question the government.

5. Emmanuel Goldstein had once been a party leader, but had then been sentenced to death and escaped. He is now the most hated person in Oceania. He is presented as the "Enemy of the People," and is blamed as the source of all treacherous activities.

Cloning

Cloning has a few positive uses, but we need to be careful to use this dangerous ability responsibly and not let ourselves get carried away. Therapeutic cloning is an example of a good use for cloning. For people who are waiting lists for organ transplants, cloning could be the answer to their prayers. In this type of cloning, cells are taken from the person's body and then used to grow whatever type of organ is needed. Since the cells are from the actual person, the new organ will not be rejected by the body. In the future, people with spinal injuries may be able to make full recoveries due to therapeutic cloning. Another use of cloning that could be beneficial is the cloning of food. From the mass production of fruits and vegetables to meatier chickens, cloning food could potentially help to solve the world hunger process. However, scientists need to be very careful that harmful genetic mutations do not occur to our food in the cloning process.
Cloning also has some uses that could be harmful to our planet and are morally wrong. Cloning pets to try to bring them back is completely wrong. It won't be the same pet; people need to learn to let the other pet go, not replace them. Cloning endangered and extinct animals to bring them back would also not be a good idea. Extinction is part of nature, and our planet may become overcrowded if we keep bringing back extinct species. Also, if the species has died out because its habitat has been destroyed, it would have to live in captivity since it would have no where to go. The most dangerous and immoral form of cloning is reproductive cloning. Being able to genetically alter these clones to create a "super human" would be a huge mistake. It is just like what Hitler wanted to do in World War II. Scientists who are experimenting with cloning humans are messing with things they do not fully understand and the consequences could be dire. If people can't have children, they should adopt instead of creating a clone of themselves.
Cloning has its good side and its bad. Therapeutic cloning and cloning of food are both very useful . We as humans all need to be careful about how far we let cloning go. Clones should not be used as replacements for lost pets or loved ones, and we should definitely ban human reproductive cloning.

Soma and Ecstasy

In Brave New World, most of the World State members are happy, but this is very artificial. The members of the World State may be happy on the surface, but their lives have no meaning. They feel no deep emotions like love and hate. They take soma, a drug that makes them happy, to escape from their true feelings, which may upset the stability of the society. Everything in the society is based on giving people instant gratification to keep them content for the moment so that they won't question anything or discover the truth about themselves or the world.
The use of ecstasy today is a lot like the use of soma in the World State. People use to escape from bad things in their lives so that they can feel happy. This happiness is very artificial, though, and people's real feelings will still be there when they are no longer high.

Brave New Babies

The article "Brave New Babies" discussed the new technology that allows parents to choose the sex of their babies and the moral questions that this new technology raises. Some people have no problem with it and believe that "family balancing" is a decision that should be left up to the individual couples. Others believe gender selection is sexist because people are choosing one gender and rejecting the other. There is also the question of what to do with the "wrong sex" embryos. Some may decide to terminate these embryos. I believe that sex selection is wrong because it could throw off the natural gender balance between males and females. It also is one more step towards designing our babies to have high intelligence or athleticism. Some things should just be left up to nature.