The Golden Compass

The film "The Golden Compass", based off the book written by Philip Pullman, is one that is said to be anti-Christian and a bad influence. Why all the fuss? It is just a story. A very well written story with amazing imagination and, yes, some references to religions. The references to religions that we know are what make the story easy to comprehend and to understand. The magisterium (the ruling power) is occasionally referred to the Catholic Church, or Christianity. So it wouldn't be fair to say that this film attacks Christianity. Pullman states, "I prefer to trust the reader. Everyone has the right to form their own opinions and come to their own conclusions about it." He was asked about promoting atheism and his response was that promoting such a thing could be taken from the book but that is not what he intended to be taken out. He says, "What I intended for people to take from it is the experience of a good story, I also hope they come away with seeing the qualities the book promotes and cheers ahead are qualities like love and compassion and courage and courtesy too; and open-minded intellectual curiosity, those are the values of the book champion." So again, what is all the fuss? It is a good story! In the fiction section! Let a story, be a story.

Work Cited:

"Pullman on the Compass Contraversy". Today. Msnbc.com. 2 Nov. 2007. 21 May 2008. .

Blog 11

I’m so glad that I have a plan for after I graduate high school. It’s a great feeling to know that I will not be totally lost when it comes to making it on my own in the world. And of course I will always have my parents there to guide me along the way and to help me in times of trouble. After I graduate high school, I plan on attending Southeastern University in Louisiana. I want to be a teacher for either secondary math or chemistry. I haven’t quite decided yet, but it is becoming clearer to me along the way. I will go to college and get my degree and whatever else is necessary to become a teacher and then, in about 5 years, I will be out looking for my first job. I would actually like to teach at East Ascension High School because it is partially where I grew up; but any other public school would be fine. Hopefully, through my adventure of college and getting a job, I will meet that guy that I will spend the rest of my life with and marry him. My dream role in life is to be a good wife and mother (first), and a teacher (second). It’s what I’ve dreamed of since I was little. So I am determined to make it happen. However, I will wait patiently for the right times of all these goals.

OUTFOXED.

Outfoxed, a documentary directed by Robert Greenwald, is a great examination of the news station FOX. The documentary's purpose is to show all viewers how subjective the news station can be. Instead of just reporting news, reporters often put their own opinions, comments, and beliefs in reports. Sometimes, it may get so often that it is no longer a report on a subject or event, but a debate. This makes FOX seem like a very unreliable source of news. Even 88% of top critics, from Rottentomatoes.com, have agreed with Outfoxed and haved called it "An often entertaining indictment of the Fox News Channel".

Like any other news station, FOX tries its hardest to get top stories and inside information to report on. However, when it comes to the reporters themselves, commentary is often used. As depicted in the documentary, reporters of FOX often provide their own commentary in a clever way. They simply state, "Some people say" or "It has been said that". In other words, "I believe" or "In my opinion". Especially at times of interviews, this may spark a debate between what the interviewer and the interviewee believe. News is not a debate. Reporters should simply just deliver the news with no extra opinion or commentary added.

Also, in the documentary, Greenwald shows that FOX may also choose their guests according to a political bias they have. FOX has had 83% of Republican guests and only 17% of Democratic guests. According to GetOUTFOXED.com, The whole documentary is ligit. All the numbers were researched and the documentary is correct. Does this not mean that they are only showing one side of the story? Or are they manipulating the news in such a way that favors Republicans? Either way, it can be concluded from the documentary that FOX is not the most reliable source of information. FOX is too subjective and bias to deliver any whole story.


Works cited:

"Outfoxed is Now Ligit". Get Outfoxed. 7 May 2008. <http://getoutfoxed.com/>.

"Movies/on DVD/ Outfoxed". Rotten Tomatoes. 17 Sep. 2004. 7 May 2008. <http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/outfoxed/?critic=creamcrop>.

Blog 9

I am 16 years old. I am a spartanette and I am planning on auditioning for the summer musical put on by Center Stage Performing Arts Academy. I might even get a job. I NEED my drivers license. However, I can not get it until I am 17. Why is that? Well, my parents never paid for driving lessons for a permit. So that was never available to me. Getting a permit now is out of the question anyway because you have to have it 6 months before your license or when you turn 17. And I turn 17 in less than 6 months so it would be pointless. Since I have all of these extra activities I am going to be doing this summer, I need my license. But since I’m not going to have it and there is no chance I will, then I have to keep relying on other people to bring me places and to bring me home.

Cell Phone Use (8)

Cell phones are used frequently by people all around the world; they are relied on as one of the main ways of communication. The cell phone industry claims that their products are safe for use; however, research comes closer to prove the exact opposite. Scientific evidence suggests cell phones are not healthy for the brain. Cell phones are very helpful for communication purposes, but they should be relied upon less because the amount and effects of radiation that the brain receives from cell phones are harmful.

In fact, there are many things harmful to the brain, such as television and computers. They, too, have radiation, similar to that of a cell phone. Nevertheless, the brain receives, at the highest, sixty percent of the radiation emitted by the cell phone. Some of this radiation is absorbed an inch, to an inch and a half, in the brain. So, cell phone radiation is much worse than that which the brain absorbs while watching television or working on the computer. The reason there is such a large percent of radiation absorbed by the brain while using a cell phone is because the proximity of the antenna to your head. The theory of using a headset instead of a direct cell phone to reduce risks of radiation is false. The headset acts as its own antenna, and therefore increases the radiation by 300%. Watching television and working on the computer for long periods of time does not affect the brain so much because the radiation is further away from the brain. So television and computers do not have to be less relied on.

The amount of radio radiation waves absorbed by the brain makes cell phone usage very dangerous towards anyone’s health when too much relied upon. A study published in the June 2003 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives showed the effects of radiation to a rat’s brain. Twelve to twenty-six-week-old rats were used in this study because their developmental age is comparable to that of human teenagers, who are considered the heaviest users of cell phones. After cell phone exposure, the rat brain had damaged neutrons and protein leaks through the blood brain barrier. Most doctors and scientists ignore the fact of cell phone use as a contribution to illnesses, because those illnesses can be so easily traced to other causes. However, there are many illnesses that have been directly linked to too much cell phone information-carrying waves, such as fatigue, headaches, sleeping disruptions, autism, and possibly even cancer.

Yes, cell phones are a great convenience of communication and very helpful. However, many people—mostly teenagers—abuse cell phones and take them for granted. They are a great advancement of technology, but cell phones should not be abused and relied on so frequently, so as to avoid the possible illnesses and damages radiation causes.


Works Cited

Nielsen, Torben. Healing Water Online. 18 Aug. 2008. Dr. Mercola. 8 April 2008. http://healingwateronline.com/health/how-cellphone-radiation-affects-your-cells-2.html

Dr. Mercola. Mercola.com Take Control of Your Health. 2008. http://www.mercola.com/forms/ferrite_beads.htm

"Inaudible Melodies" by Jack Johnson

“Inaudible Melodies” by Jack Johnson is a song about growing up. The title is the first shocking thing that comes to mind. How can melodies be inaudible? It simply means that many people don’t realize their growing up until they are grown. In the chorus, Johnson says, “Slow down, everyone, you’re moving too fast, frames can’t catch you when you’re moving like that.” When he talks about frames, he means pictures of moments; and if one is moving too fast, or growing up to fast, then pictures will be scarce, and not many moments will be treasured in a photo. Throughout the song, he uses the same mellow tone evaluating the life of someone growing up too fast, and comparisons for those people.
Johnson mentions many things that contribute to a growing life. He starts with an anastrophe saying, “well shortcuts can slow you down and in the end we’re bound to rebound off of we.” In life, people take shortcuts, and because they are shorter, people slow down. Then in the end, they have to rebound off of what they have done. There is always a consequence for everything. He also says, “in the long run we have found, silent films are full of sound.” This is an analogy for saying as people grow up, things that didn’t seem to mean much when they were younger, have much more meaning. Towards the end of the song, Johnson mentions “Plato’s cave is full of freaks demanding refunds for the things they’ve seen, I wish they could believe in all the things that never made the screen.” He is referring to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”. It’s about prisoners in a cave that only see the wall in front of them, then when let go, see this whole new world they never knew. Then they realize that they didn’t want to know all they’ve come to know because it’s a scary world out there. Johnson is simply saying that the world is full of people who don’t realize reality in life. He also contributes to this idea earlier in the song. He says, “Unobtrusive tones help to notice nothing but the zone of visual relevancy”. Unobtrusive means hardly noticed; and tone refers to emotions. So hardly noticed emotions contribute to a person’s focus on what they think truly matters. Overall, the message of the song is, again, to not grow up too fast and to take time exploring life and to take too many pictures; capture moments to treasure.

"Jeremy" by Pearl Jam

The song “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam is about a boy who is bullied at school, has no friends, and receives no love or attention from his parents at home. The song starts with the boy drawing pictures of himself sitting on top of the sun with his “arms raised in a ‘V’” symbolizing victory over the “dead laying in pools of maroon below”. This describes how corrupted this little boy’s mind is because little boys don’t usually draw pictures of themselves sitting victoriously over dead people.

In the second verse, the singer takes the character of a school mate of Jeremy’s who bullied him. He says, “It seemed harmless” but ends up “unleashing a lion.” The song backs this up by exemplifying that he attacked the recess lady and hits the singer’s character. This would be considered an antecedent-consequence. Jeremy was already an angry child, so pushing him around would just make him angrier and then cause him to attack.

The chorus shows a lot off guilt coming from the singer’s character, who isn’t necessarily a boy anymore. He explains how bad the boy had it at home and why Jeremy acted out the way he did. Jeremy’s dad “didn’t give attention” to him, and “the boy was something that mommy wouldn’t wear”. Meaning the dad didn’t acknowledge him and the mother could care less he existed because she didn’t show him off and maybe didn’t tell people she even had a son. The chorus ends with, “Jeremy spoke in class today.” This does not necessarily mean words, but killing himself or other people.

The song also says that he’s “trying to erase this from the blackboard”, which possibly means Jeremy’s trying forget the plan for killing himself and/or others but it’s just so hard. The song, overall, has a great message for bullies because bullies are part of the reason why some kids are pushed to violence. Most times, bullies don’t realize the lives behind those who are bullied. Those lives can have bad situations that they choose to hide from other people. So the tiniest things can trigger those kids into pulling a physical trigger that could take the lives of themselves and/or others.

My Writing (5)

I would consider myself a pretty fair writter; although i do have my weak points. I always know what exactly I want to say, but coming up with the right words to put on paper is hard for me. I also have problems with organization. Again, I know exaclty what I want to say; but to organize it into sentences that flow, so that I'm not jumping from one idea to another, is another difficulty. Anytime I write a paper I try to read over it again and again, like I'm reading it for the first time, to check if it flows. But I still have trouble. I know that I can improve greatly on my writing and I'm always open to other people's advice.

Intelligence

The definition of intelligence is “the capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.” I fully agree with this definition. For someone to be intelligent, they have to be able to learn, and seek to learn the truth and meaning for things. An open mind is of most importance for learning. But an intelligent person does not only learn all that they possibly can, they apply it. They look of ways to use their intelligence for the common good of their nature. Most people are victims to their own environment; and those people don’t have to learn anything other than what they need to survive to be intelligent. For example, a native in the jungle, who doesn’t know a thing of math or science, knows where to go, how to defend himself, and how to hunt. To that nature, and that environment, he is very intelligent.

Belief, Truth, and Knowledge

What is the difference between knowledge, truth, and belief? In my opinion, which it is a funny thing for one to give their opinion on such a subject, is that all three of these help shape our minds. We only know the things that we believe and believe the things we learn as true. In learning truth, we think about what really is true. And in learning truth, we can begin to doubt what we already believed to be true. See how all three connect? The main thing here is truth; and what really is true against what we just think is true. Also, how to we come to getting at the truth. To know something, you have to believe it is true. And to learn the truth, we have only but to doubt the things that we think are true. The key here is an open mind.

V for Vendetta Analyzed

V’s speech to the people of London

The movie V for Vendetta takes place in London many years from now. It’s a story all about how Parliament takes over completely and the people of London are pushed to such injustice and oppression. A man named “V”, who is a survivor of one of the crudest forms of injustice, becomes a plotting revolutionist. He wears the mask of Guy Fawkes, who was a French revolutionist in the 1600’s. Fawkes lead a gunpowder treason to blow up Parliament symbolizing the government’s wrong doings. He planned it on November the fifth and wanted to embed it as a national holiday. Sadly, he did not succeed. V however, plans to lead the same kind of revolution. To do that, part of his plot includes the people of London. So on November the fifth, he takes over the media station and broadcasts a speech that persuades the people to be by his side in their own revolution.

In V’s speech to the people, he begins with a simple apology to London and confesses that he too “appreciates the comforts of the everyday routine, the security of the familiar, and the tranquility of repetition.” In saying this, he implies that he means them not to be dismayed from listening. He then goes on to say that November the fifth will be an important day.

V mentions that there are “those who do not want us to speak” and that he “suspects that orders are being given and men with guns will soon be on their way.” He starts to evaluate all the things that are happening, and they are believably true. V explains why the government would not want him to speak, and it is because “words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.” These words appeal to the people’s intellect. Then V adds to that by boldly stating that there is something terribly wrong with the country. By using words such as “cruelty”, “injustice”, and “oppression” to describe the government, he starts to appeal to the audience’s emotions. He talks of how much the people are censored and have “systems of surveillance”. He speaks of it strongly implying that everyone knows what he is talking about; and especially the government. He blames the government, but he knows where the real blame lies. He tells the people “if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only to look into a mirror.” It is then very clear that he blames the people, and in return, the people know they are to blame.

By this point of V’s speech, he has totally turned the audience’s emotions. Then, by the change of tone in his voice, from calm but strong to very understanding; he starts to evaluate more of why the people are to be blamed. He says, “I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War. Terror. Disease.” V plainly states that fear got the best of them and corrupted their common sense which is why they turned to the High Chancellor, who promised peace and demanded only their “silent, obedient consent.” By now, the people are stirred by the fact that they surrendered too many freedoms for the comfort and security of their own lives.

Next, V confessed to blowing up the Old Bailey the night before. The Old Bailey is one of the most important court houses in London; and on top stood a revised version of Lady Justice, none the less, she still stood for justice. His reasoning for such an act was simply to “remind the country of what it has forgotten”, which is justice, peace, and freedom. At this point, he starts his reasoning of a revolution with the people by giving history of November the fifth and the meaning for recreating it. He ends his speech with a powerful tone that completely grabs the people’s emotions even more. V states, “But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek…then I ask you to stand beside me, one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament. And together, we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot!” This last statement creates unity, courage, and power for the people to take thier government back through an uprising.

all about myself (1)

Hi everyone. My name is Audrey. It’s really hard to just start writing a blog about myself because I really don’t know where I could possibly start. While reading, you may find that I switch quickly from one subject to another. I guess I can say that’s a thing you should know about me. I can be very random, but that is only because I say what I think. And of course, everyone can understand what I mean by that because you don’t think in clear sentences. Everything is chaos in your head and one subject leads to another, then to another, and soon enough you have this big train of thought where the first thing you started talking about doesn’t exactly make sense with the last thing. Why am I giving you a lesson on how we think? Well, of course I’m just trying to get you to realize why I’m random.

Maybe I should start telling you a little more about myself. Here are the basics. I’m a girl (obviously), 5’7”, sixteen years old, white Caucasian, brown hair, hazel eyes (blue-green), 116 lb. I have 4 sisters, 2 parents, all 4 grandparents, and too many cousins to count. I’ve lived in the same place all my life, never moved houses or school, and I’m very optimistic. I used to have a dog but she was too much to handle in a family of 7 so we gave her away sadly. Then I had 16 fish, but they all have died by now. I guess I just never had the best of luck with animals; however, I LOVE horses. I am the middle child, but I certainly don’t act like the middle child. Or at least I try not to. I love to meet new people and volunteer. In ten years, I plan on being a math teacher, hopefully married with a kid or two, and a speaker for Catholic teens. Oh yea! I forgot to tell you that part. I am a strict Catholic and I want to play a big part in my church after I turn 18. My favorite colors are yellow and orange, and my favorite movie is Pirates of the Caribbean 3: at World's End! I love all kinds of foods. I try to keep an open mind to anything and everything. Music, food, culture, you name it! Well I could just go on and on but I need to save some things for other blogs! Bye :)