Journal #9

1. This picture claims that on your 18th birthday you can go away to war but you are not aloud to drink alcohol.

2. This picture shows this is true because the war side of the picture has a thumbs up whereas the drinking side of the picture has a thumbs down.

3. I think that you should be able to go off to war and fight for your country at the age of 18. However, I don't think that any 18 year old, although an adult should be able to drink. I don't believe any 18 year old is wise enough to make a decision and I think they still have a lot of growing up to do.

Lightman and Gloud Question's

1. Yes, I do believe that reading the first and last paragraph of an essay gives you a good preview of the article.
2. It is important to know that Lightman is a scientist because he knows a lot more about this subject than an artist or social worker would know about the earth being round or flat. It also tells us he is knowledgeable and we can believe what he is telling us.
3. Lightman is using a lighthearted tone when he talks about conducting his experiments in Greexe because it seemed satisfying. He is serious when he talks about Aristotle being the first person in history to give proof that the earth is round. The effects of his tones showed that he could be humorous but also very serious.
1. To support the theory of evolution Gloud talks about the imperfections of nature. People think that nature should be elegant when in actuality it can be gruesome, but this is what the animals do to survive. Another theory to support evolution is the transitions are often found in fossil records.
2. Gloud talks about Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s apple theory.
3. I have never heard of the Darrow and Bryan trial and by reading about it my understanding was not reduced.

Journal #8

This picture claims that there is not enough social sercurity for everyone. This image show viewers by the safety trampoline that only has enough room for one person, yet there are several people who are falling and depend on the safety net (social security).

Journal #7

I do not think it makes sense to let children have a mock election, they are too young to understand all the different debates and don't realize the significance of an election. I think the children are getting the ideas from their parents, after all they look up to them. So if they know who their parents are going to vote for they will vote for the same candidate. I don't think its accurate to say that children pick the right candidate for the presidential election because they don't know anything about it. They are voting for who their parents are choosing or who their friend is going to vote for that is sitting next to them. Kids are influenced with their choices. So I don't think children can really predict the future President.

This I Believe- Revised Draft

What is love? Love is many different things, happiness, friendship, fear, luck, feeling emotions and much more. Love makes your heart grow stronger, but I believe it makes your heart grow bigger. For me love is all the above but mostly fear. I remember the day I feared for the life of my father like it was happening all over again. I will never forget that day; it was a Friday March 14, 2008. I was at a softball tournament and had not spoken to anyone in my family the entire day, but I never for one second thought it was because my dad had a stroke that very morning.
I got home around three o’clock in the afternoon and my mom and brother were waiting for me so we could go see my dad in the hospital. As we were driving there I was scared, of what I don’t know. Maybe I was scared that the night before could’ve been the last time I ever saw my father, scared that I never had the relationship that I always wish I had had with him, or scared that he might have another stroke. I should’ve been happy that he was still alive and my mom kept telling me that he was in good spirits, but I wasn’t going to believe her until I saw him for myself.
As we arrived at the hospital I remembered walking up to the entrance of the automatic sliding glass doors and feeling the cool air from the inside send chills down my spine. It wasn’t the feeling you get when you walk outside on a beautiful day in the fall that brightens your day, but a depressed sad feeling. When I walked in, I was cold which made me miserable, and the lights were dim which made me depressed. Then, we finally got up to the fifth floor which was recovery, and as I walked into his room I saw him on his blackberry back at work. He looked up, smiled, and cracked a joke which made us all feel better. We all sat around his bed and talked to him for twenty minutes. Those twenty minutes were the last time our lives would ever be the same. The last twenty minutes that we would that we would not fear for the life of our father, husband, son, brother, and uncle. The stroke he had earlier in the day became increasingly larger. He was quickly rushed down to ICU where he would fight to make it through the night.
The fear of living in the dark is what scared me the most. The doctors and nurses would not tell us anything. At the time we were unaware that he had another stroke, we did not know how large the bleed in his brain was, and we were not sure if the bleed would ever stop. I feared hearing the words “he didn’t make it” they would have been too sudden; I was not ready to let go of my father. I sat in the waiting room thinking of all the good times I had with him. Then I realized I didn’t want to think about what we had but what was to come in the future. But I just became more fearful, I thought of many things, such as, what if he is not here when I graduate high school or college, he may not be around to walk me down the aisle when I get married or to meet his first grandchild. He may not be around to help coach my brother through football season, or to spend retirement traveling the world with my mom.
When you become fearful you never remember the bad times, but only the good times you shared with that person. You realize that although you’ve had your differences you still love them and you always will. My dad is now healthy and I am so happy that I get to spend more time with him and cherish every moment of it. I will still fear for his life every second of every day because I love him.

Journal Entry #7 Orwell

1. Orwell tries to prove his point that the English language is in trouble by blaming our foolish thoughts and bad habits.
2. From the time Orwell wrote this essay I believe the English language has become worse. Many of my teachers will agree with me when I say this because they witness it first hand with the upcoming generations. They would always correct students and say, “Bobby and I not me and Bobby”. Today we have overused shorthand, instead of saying, “got to go, talk to you later” we say, “g2g, ttyl”. Also I receive many text messages with words put together, for example; the word out of combine and form outta. There are many forms of this shorthand which I consider to be a misuse of the English language.
3. I do not agree with all of Orwell’s rules. I think that if you can use a big and intelligent word in a sentence I think you should instead of replacing it with a word a five year old can understand. I think if need be you should also use a scientific word. I believe using words people are unfamiliar with is good for us, because if we don’t understand something we can look it up in the dictionary. I don’t think someone should have to scale down their writing skills or knowledge for someone else when they can simply look something up that they do not understand.
4. When Orwell says you should focus on pictures and sensations before you put words on paper, I think he wants the writer to know what they are describing and describe it in detail as if it were right in front of them and not in their brain. I have focused more on the details while writing a paper and I think that it makes an essay become more alive and realistic. Also I think it keeps the reader interested and makes them feel like they are experiencing it themselves.

Murray Chapter 6 Questions

1. In my euthanasia essay that I wrote I believe my information was well described, but I don’t believe I captured the audience very well overall. I should’ve asked more questions to keep them interested in what I was about to talk about. I could’ve organized my essay better; it went back and forth quite a bit. It did not develop into the essay I thought it would.
2. As I was reading my essay aloud to myself I realized that it was very disheveled and uninteresting. I need to find a better introduction and get more opinions of euthanasia. I interviewed many people but each one had the same opinion about it. Finally, although there are many different types of euthanasia I need to focus on one kind.
3. Yes, Murray telling me who the speaker was grabs my attention and influences how I read and comprehend the quote. When he tells us the speakers name and where they are from I start to think of the heritage and how things are or in another country or day and age. It really helps me grasp the meaning of the quote and that it might have been taken differently a hundred years ago than what it means today.

Re-write This I Believe

What is love? Love is many different things, happiness, friendship, fear, luck, feeling emotions and much more. Love makes your heart grow stronger, but I believe it makes your heart grow bigger. For me love is all the above but mostly fear. I remember the day I feared for the life of my dad like it was happening all over again.
It was Friday March 14, 2008, grad day at universal studios. However, I was not going to grad day because I had a softball tournament. So that morning is when it all began. I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and woke up two of my teammates who had spent the night at my house because I was taking them to the tournament. We left the house at 6:00 a.m. and fifteen minutes later is when it all began. My dad woke up that morning and felt dizzy, he had a sharp pain behind his eye, and the left side of his body went numb. He quickly awakend my mom and told her that he didn’t feel so well and she called 911. The paramedics arrived shortly there after and most of my dads symptoms were gone, but they took him to the emergency room for precautions. The ER doctor ruled it a TIA, (transient ischemic attack) which is a mini stroke.
It was now three o’clock and I was headed back from miami and had not talked to my parents all day. I could not get a hold of my mom nor my dad and knew something was up, because my dad always calls me to ask how my games went and how I did. As soon as I got home I was greeted by my grandparents who were out doing yardwork and I noticed my dad’s car was still in the driveway. I asked my Nana why his car was still in the driveway and she told me he woke up this morning and wasn’t feeling well so I immediately started walking towards his bedroom so I could tell him about my games when my Nana stopped me and said he is not in their, he is at the hospital. My eyes filled with tears rapidly and slowly rolled down my cheeks one by one. My mom walked in the door with my brother, they had gone to get lunch, she told me to shower and that we would go see him after we ate lunch. I had taken the quickest shower of my life and we were soon on our way to the hospital.
When I stepped in his hospital room he was sitting up and already on his blackberry back at work talking to customers. He looked up, smiled, and cracked a joke, I couldn’t even tell he had just had a stroke. We sat and talked to him, but less than twenty minutes later he got the worst headache of his life that would stay for three days. He suddenly got all the symptoms of a stroke again, numbness, headache, dizziness, pain behind his eye, and loss of speech. My mom quickly ran to get his nurse, but she did not arrive for five minutes and no doctor came to help for what felt like an eternity. When the doctor came they brought him down to ICU, but the doctor was to late to witness the symptoms and could not give us an explanation to what just happened. They continued to watch him down in ICU. Eventually, they took him to get an MRI, whiched showed that he had a bleed in his brain. They put him on blood thinners and said that it was the only thing they could do for him. They hoped that the bleed would clot on its own, but in trying to prevent the stroke from getting even larger he had to go on the blood thinners. Now it was sitting and waiting. That night we sat and waited with our family, friends, and my dad’s co-workers. After everyone left I was still their, sitting in the waiting room. I told my mom that I would not leave because they weren’t sure that my dad would make it through the night. She convinced me to let my boyfriend take me home who would not leave my side. But when I got home I could not sleep, I feared the phone rining in the middle of the night. At some point I had cried myself to sleep.
The next morning I woke up and immediately went back to the hospital, but there was no change in my dads condition, they were still unsure whether or not he was going to make it. The bleed in the brain kept getting larger and his headache kept getting worse. We sat all day in the waiting room on Saturday, but it was not till Sunday that my dad starting feeling better. That day I got to see him and talk to him for a while. Its amazing how quickly someone can go down hill. He had trouble moving and couldn’t feed himself very well. I watched him eat and he fed himself like a two year old would. As he finished eating the doctors came in to talk to him and said that if he was still doing well by Monday morning they would do a proceedure on him. It was risky but nessisary. Monday morning rolled around quickly and they did the proceedure. He made it through and the doctors came to the conclusion that plauque from one of his arteries broke off and traveled up to his brain which caused the stroke.
It is now seven months later, he has had another stroke, and he now has a heart monitor in his chest. He has short term memory loss and does not remember the day he had his stroke and the many days after that either. He sometimes walks with a cane because his whole left side in numb. He has come a long way since then. I have always loved my dad, but through this experience I realized that I never want to go a day without my dad. I really appreciate him and everything he has done for me. For this, I believe in love.

Questions for my essay

1. Do you believe in euthanasia? Why or why not? If yes, which kind of euthanasia do you believe in?
2. In the controversy of euthanasia, why do you think it should or should not be legal? How much does religion play a factor in legalizing euthanasia
3. Why is it ok to euthanize an aniamal who cannot tell us wether they want to live or die, but we can’t euthanize a human being who gives their consent?
4. If euthanasia was leagal, when would it be ok to euthanize someone?
5. What don’t you like about my essay? What needs to be changed?
6. What else could I talk about in my essay?
7. When is it and when is it not ok to perform euthanasia?
8. How do you like the way I ended my essay?

Euthanasia

What is euthanasia? Well eu comes from the Greek language that means “good” and “thanatos” means death. Euthanasia is the intentional killing of a human being for his or her benefit. This usually occurs when someone is deathly ill, not responding to medical treatment anymore, and in excruciating pain. The most common in passive euthanasia is to deliver high dosages of morphine to the patient which will act as a pain killer and also slow respiration, which will cause death. This person may ask to be killed which is known as voluntary euthanasia. Non voluntary euthanasia is when the person is killed and never requested to be put to death. Assisted suicide is when a person provides information and guidance to help a person commit suicide. Physician assisted suicide is when a doctor helps a person kill themselves. Passive euthanasia is when you remove life support, stopping medical procedures, not helping the person is anyway while he or she is dying. Euthanasia by action is when someone kills another person by giving them a lethal injection; this is usually done in jails when someone is on death row. Euthanasia by omission is killing a person by not providing the proper care, such as food and water. The following are different forms of euthanasia.

How do people respond to euthanasia? When I interviewed people, everyone seemed to be for it, in just about every form. But the most popular is voluntary euthanasia, probably because the person is giving his or her consent to be put to death. When most people think of voluntary euthanasia they think of someone who is terminally ill with n a few days, weeks, or months left to live, and they are in so much pain. To them the pain is not worth being unhappy for the short time they have left to live, so they asked to be put to death. When I asked someone why they think euthanasia should be legal, the person responded, “I think the most difficult thing to do is to watch a person you love dearly in pain because of an incurable disease.” I think many people agree with what she had to say and that’s why many people are for euthanasia. People also believe in euthanasia by action because people who are killed in this type of euthanasia, by lethal injection are usually in jail and on death row. When people think of people being killed in this way they say stuff like, “they must have done something to deserve it” and “an eye for an eye.” But not everyone believes in euthanasia.

Most people don’t believe in assisted suicide, which is giving information and guidance to the person who wants to commit suicide. People don’t feel this is right because according to most religions committing suicide is wrong and if you are healthy enough to live you should. People also say the choice is for God to decide when a person should live and when they should die. They say it’s inhumane, but what about our animals. We don’t let them suffer in pain, we euthanize them usually as soon as we find out they are sick. People also don’t believe in killing by omission for the obvious reasons of letting the person suffer until they die. It is wrong to make people go without food or water for several days till they finally pass. But people don’t all ways suffer in pain when they are being euthanized.

The big controversy over this is should euthanasia be legal. Many people think it should be for the right reasons, such as preventing a person from suffering and dying a horrible death. Others believe that no matter what is happening euthanasia should not be legal. People should be allowed to make their own decision when it’s there life. If you were in their position and knowing you were going to die a slow, painful, and agonizing death, would you ask a doctor to euthanize you so you could be happy and pain free in your final days? Many people would say yes, and ask a doctor to euthanize them because no one wants to be remembered in their final days as helpless and lifeless. People want others to remember them when they were lively, in good spirits, and healthy. But the question will always be up in the air, euthanasia will probably never be legalized in the United States. People should have the right to make their own choices. Isn’t that what America is all about?
http://www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/index.html http://www.religioustolerance.org/euth1.htm

In the News #6

Trooper says he couldn't avoid suspect with car

I believe the troopers act was intentional and was an act of racism. I have been to South Carolina many times and you can see that white people look down upon black people and treat them differently. I think when the trooper said, "yes, I hit him on purpose" even the sarcasm behind it was not neccessary and he deserves to go to jail for that. I also think it shows some proof that he tried to hit the man on purpose.

I think few cases are known or even noticed when it comes to the people civil rights against any type of police authority because know one wants to get on an officers bad side. If you do and suddenly there's an emergency not only will that officer not be anxious to help you but neither will any others because they all are on the same side.

Yes I think the troopers punishment was resonable, he did something terrible and then turned around and joked about it. That to me says it is intentional and the ten years in prison and 250 community service hours is a good punishment. I think he got off easy because any other person would be in jail for 15-25 years and have a lot more community service hours.

Myth Interview

Do you believe in euthanasia?
Person #1: Yes
Person #2: Yes
Person #3: Yes
Why?
Person #1: because I think the most difficult thing is to watch a person you love dearly in pain because of an incurable disease. We do not allow our pets to suffer unnecessarily. And I don’t believe humans should go through that. Its degrading for humans to have to lose their senses its humiliating. And some people beg to be put to death and I think in that case doctors should be able to help.
Person #2: I believe in euthanasia to end the life of a person with a terminal illness when there is absolutely nothing else medically they can do for them.
Person #3: Somebody’s sick and theres nothing you can do to help them until they die put them out of their misery so they don’t have to suffer. People with certain kinds of cancer are in a lot of pain and why make them go through that if they don’t want to.

What is your definition of euthanasia?
Person #1: Putting a person to death to end their suffering from an incurable disease if the person requests.
Person #2: To end the suffering of a person by putting them to death in a humane way.
Person #3: Assisting individuals on their death bed to pass without pain.

How do you think the doctors end their patient’s lives?
Person #1: There is a drug that is injected that stops your heart.
Person #2: By an injection of medication that will stop the heart.
Person #3: The doctors give them an overdose of drugs which will kill them.