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.

The British National Health Service

In the article "The British National Health Service," the author believes that while there are many problems with the American health care system, we should not try to emulate the British system. According to him, the British system addresses the best interests of the state rather than the individual. Individuals have to wait months or years for hospitalization, tests, and surgeries. The level of care is not as great as in the United States. He says that they get what they pay for. Although there are problems with the U.S. health care system, changing it to a socialist system would not solve anything, according to the author. He suggests that U.S. health care should focus more on preventative care.

www.burtonreport.com%2FInfHealthCare%2FBritNatHealthServ.htm

Machiavelli and the Mullahs

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli gives political advice that could be applied to the current situation between the United States and Iran. In his book, Machiavelli advises leaders to fix problems right away before they become incurable. David J. Rusin, the author of "Machiavelli and the Mullahs," believes that the time to stop Iran's nuclear program is now. Rusin also believes that the President should apply three of Machiavelli's principles to the current situation with Iran: self-reliance, the importance of being feared, and taking initiative once a conflict is inevitable. Self-reliance is important because the United States can't rely on others such as the UN to do what is necessary to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is important to be feared because otherwise all of our threats will be seen as empty, and we will get nowhere with negotiations because Iran will have no motivation to cooperate. When war is inevitable, the President must take the initiative to fight the terrorists and not allow them to obtain nuclear weapons.

Heart of Darkness- part III

“In seasons of pestilence some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease--a terrible passing inclination to die of it. And all of us have like wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them.”
-A Tale of Two Cities

This quote means that people are often attracted to destructive behavior and to things that are actually harmful to them. In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Mr. Kurtz is attracted to this destructive behavior. He goes mad in Africa with greed and power. He becomes very ill several times but will not leave. He oppresses the Africans, but his behavior is also hurting himself. The other agents mentioned in the book also are attracted to this savage and dangerous lifestyle.
This type of behavior was also in Lord of the Flies. The boys became savages, which ended up killing some of the boys. It made their chances of survival much slimmer because they all fought instead of working together in a civilized way. Even though it endangered their lives, the boys were attracted to this dangerous and destructive behavior.

Should the United States Send Peacekeeping Troops to Darfur?

The situation in Darfur is horrible and tragic, but the U.S. should not deploy troops to Darfur. The United States is already involved in a war in Iraq. We didn't have a solid plan to help the Iraqis, and we don't have a good plan about what to do in Darfur. We should try to put economic and political pressure on Sudan to end the violence, but we can't just send our troops off to any place in the world that has a problem. The African Union or the UN needs to work this out. The United States needs to get out of Iraq before committing itself to another war.

Heart of Darkness- part II

1. Marlow learns that the manager and his uncle dislike and are jealous of Mr. Kurtz. They don't understand him, and they don't want him to become a manager and take power away from them.
2. The uncle is gesturing towards the wilderness, the "heart of darkness", and he thinks maybe it will kill Mr. Kurtz.
3. Marlow is amazed by the cannibal crew's restraint because they haven't eaten any of the white men on board the steamboat even though its been many months, and they outnumber the white men thirty to five.

Heart of Darkness- part one

1. The first of the narrators is a man on board the Nellie who tells us about Marlow, who is the other narrator. There are five people on the Nellie, the Director of Companies, an accountant, a lawyer, the narrator, and Marlow. They are on the Thames River, and as the sun sets, Marlow begins to tell them a story about when he was a steamboat operator on the Congo River.

2. Marlow emphasizes that England was conquered by the ancient Romans.

3. Marlow means that people conquer other people who are different from them and always come up with some reason or idea that justifies the violence or injustice to themselves or others. Marlow is not justifying imperialism or colonialism; he is pointing out that people have made up excuses to justify it.

4. When Marlow was a boy, there were many unknown blank spaces on the maps. He wanted to go to and explore these places someday, but by the time he was grown up, they had all been "discovered" and colonized.

The United Nations

I agree with congresswoman Andrea Seastrand and the arguments she makes as to why the United States should withdraw from the United Nations. Firstly, although the U.S. has around 300 million people and contributes a quarter of the UN budget, it has just one vote-- the same as countries such as Palau with fewer than 15,000 citizens. Another flaw in the UN is that it has not fulfilled its promises of peace and justice. The conflicts in Rwanda, Somalia, and Bosnia show how ineffective and even harmful the U.N. has been. The United States shouldn't allow the U.N. to tie its hands. Although the spirit of international communication and cooperation is a great thing to support, the U.N. has to many flaws to really do what it should. If the United States does withdraw, we could still support those U.N. in those missions that we agree with. The United States should withdraw so that we will be free to do what seems best, and we won't be wasting taxpayers' dollars on an organization that is getting nowhere.