This article was seriously ridiculous. I have never read the book “Brave New World” and after reading I have no desire to either. This article did nothing but point out things that would make someone not want to read it. The article mainly pointed out how the book dealt with sex and how no one wants to give birth to a child. Now having a book that has sex in it is completely different than having a book that is based on nothing but sex. . Especially if the one deals with little kids are fooling around with each other! “sex has become a recreation. Little naked children carry on “erotic play” in the shrubberies, so as to get a hand in early” (Atwood).  I really don’t want to read something that involves little kids doing this.

In “Brave New World” I gather that people are living in a utopia and are trying to maintain the peace in their strange little way. “Brave New World has its own gentler punishments: for non-conformists, it’s exile to Iceland, where Man’s Final End can be discussed among like-minded intellectuals without pestering “normal “people- in a sort of university, as it were” (Atwood).  This gives me the impression that these people are of a higher intelligence than for the time period it was written.  Well the book was half right. During this day and age there is things to help prevent someone from having a child after having sex and there are a lot people who base everything around sex. Yes there are those types of people out there, and yes we all know them, so no, there is no reason for anyone to get offended I’m just stating facts.

This article also points out that there is a detachment of emotion between a test tube baby and the so called parent. There is no emotion or there is no trial and error while learning out to parent a child. They are programmed on what to say and how to act. Really?? That is ridiculous. Parents are supposed to be parents and children are not supposed to be born from test tubes which is just absurd.

This article just leaves me perplexed. Atwood seems to be running Huxley in the mud about something and then compliments him. Either way I do not want to read this book and it is just way too confusing and I don’t want to read it. It may be a good book, but it will take a lot of convincing for me to read it.

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Do violent games contribute to youth violence?

Violent games in my opinion do not contribute to youth violence. There are many other factors that have to be taken into consideration before people jump to the conclusion that violent video games cause youth violence. One factor is parents can monitor how much time a youth has to play such a video game. It is the parents responsibility to keep track of how much the child plays and what the child plays. People also forget that the parent is allowing the youth to play this game.

With all this fuse about violent games causing violent behavior, one would think that the youth crime rate has increase. Actually, the opposite has happened. One expert says, ” Violent juvenile crime has been declining as violent video game popularity has increased. the arrest rate for juvenile murders has fallen 71.9% between 1995 and 2008 (” Do violent”). Now this only mentions murders. This a big drop in the percent rate. Did you notice that it has dropped even thought the the popularity of violent video games have increased? Another point that this does not contribute to youth violence. Adults believe that youths are very influential, like we have no say in what we watch and we are bound to pick up that behavior. We are not that influential and we are not bound to pick up the behavior of everything a youth plays and watches. It is an individual choice on what everyone does.

Everybody wants a study proving the link between violent behavior to violent video games. Well the jury is in,  and there are no studies showing that violent video games are linked to violent behavior.  Don’t believe me? According to one expert source, “Many studies suffer from design flaws and use unreliable measures of violence and aggression such as a noise blast test. Thoughts about aggression have been confused with aggressive behavior and there is a lack of studies that follow children over long periods of time “(“Do violent”). There’s your proof.

I have played violent video games ever since I was a little and I have not committed and crimes or have gone completely crazy from playing them.  Everyone has a choice to control their behavior or not to. It it the parents job to help teach their child how to deal with their emotions. Now do kids make mistakes and slip up? Yes. Do they get mad? Yes. It is natural to have these emotions, but just because someone has these emotions and the play video games doesn’t mean it related. That is just jumping to conclusions.

 

 

A Hunger Artist

A Hunger Artist is a very disturbing book to me. The story highlighted a man who craved attention in his life and to get it he would starve himself. To interpret the story I would have to go in to some symbolism. The cage that the Hunger artist puts himself in shows that he has trapped himself in his own box or mind. This is a way that society will accept him, however if he were to starve himself out side of his cage he would be looked down upon and considered insane. I don’t think that the Hunger Artist knows how to communicate using words; only by starving himself is he communicating. Some people paint, others write, and he this is way.

I also believe that the Hunger Artist represents Kafka’s own life. He was looked down upon for wanting his do write books and had an awkward relationship with his parents who stimulated the need for attention. That what both the Hunger Artist and Kafka wanted. They wanted attention from people to recognize what they do. From this I gather that Kafka reflected this very point because he felt alone in the world and even though he was very sexual active, he never had anything that would stay. The Hunger Artist went through the same thing. For awhile people ravished at the sight of him starving himself and how long the could go, however, society soon changed. As the time went on he began to loose the audience’s attention and then started to do anything for their attention.

Another thing that resembles symbolism is the panther they put into the cage after the man dies. The panther represents life, and how it can be vibrant and can spark emotions, reactions. It replaced the old, depressing sight of life just wasting away in a cage because he was scared of doing anything else.  The Hunger Artist didn’t live a life; he lived a deranged fantasy to which he just let everything pass him by.  The panther also represents change. Change is immediate it doesn’t wait for anyone. Just like the story, as soon as the man died from starving himself, they hurried up and put the panther in. They couldn’t wait, change is bound to come. People just have to learn to deal with it.

With all the food in the world, there should have been something the Hunger artist should have liked. There was no one reason why he didn’t like anything. So I came to the conclusion that the food represented something else entirely. The food isn’t food, its happiness. True happiness that he never found because he stuck himself in a cage to wither away into nothing. He never allowed himself to venture of it, or to enjoy a laugh with friends, have a family, or even have a conversation with someone. All he had was his thoughts. A persons mind can become their worst enemy. When a person is left alone with no humanly contact (conversations, etc.) their psychological state begins to decrease. The more they lack in this field the worse their state becomes. They become anti-social, have thoughts that they are better off on their own, become paranoid, and create a reality that fits those giving them false feelings. Does this sound familiar? This is exactly what happened to the Hunger Artist.

Swimmer Question 1

I believe that this short story is a work of surrealism. The way the author has Neddy swimming through his neighbors house while the season is a pure example of this. Seasons change over months not when someone changes pools. Also, Neddy has a drink at every house except for his mistress and an old lady’s house. Neddy should have been so intoxicated that he shouldn’t have even moved. The author also had Neddy age rapidly to go along with the changing season. The way the author wrote to make the reader believe that Neddy is actually swimming through this “river” was actually quite genius. It helped pull the story together makes the surrealism more noticeable. There is no way the people would be okay with someone pool hopping or crashing a party.  My question is why did the author have the pools, seasons, and Neddy’s age rapidly and why does it appear that Neddy is actually swimming when he isn’t?

The main conflict in this story is that Neddy is an overall alcoholic who loved drinking more than he loved his family. Neddy’s family ran into some financial debts and needed money fast. He just shut himself off and drowned his sorrows away. However, when he sobers up and he comes to terms with the fact that he lost his family and everything that was dear to him because of his self-fish acts. It is also sad because he is so lost in his own world that he  I am still curious of one thing however. Why was this the first time that Neddy realized that he already lost everything..why didn’t he see the signs sooner?

Should carrying conceled weapons be allowed?

Carring a conceld weapon is allowed in 49 states since July 30, 2011. According to the article, Illinois and Washington D.C. are the only two that do not allow civilians to carry conceld weapons. I agree with this because having a gun doesn’t ensure your safety or that bad things won’t happen to you.

Opposers of this issue are worried about the increase of people having guns will lead to more uninteined accidents and injures resulting in the use and carrying of guns. I can understand where they are coming from because if I were to get into a fight with a friend or I was messing around with the gun, it could accidently go off or what is going to stop from shooting the person I am having an agruement with? The article points out that the people who are for carring conceled weapons say that criminals are less likely to attack someone who they think is carring. However, this is not the case. Criminals might result to more forceful ways to get the person to do what they want or they just might go ahead and shoot that person.

People who are for carring concealed weapons say carring concealed weapons could aid in ending public shooting. How exactly could it aid in ending it? It would only increase it. If you have someone who acts on impulse and they are mad at the world, they could just pull out a gun and starting shooting up the place.

There are 50 people who are accidently shot each day in America and 15 year olds die from accidental gunfire every other day. That is insane. Not to mention the suicide rates.  The tendancy of suicide are one-third to four-fifths on impulse.  Now I know that anyone can have a gun at the age of 18.   I also know that someone can walk home and pull a gun out a blow thier head off.  Or they can go find a gun and do it. However, at least they have that time it takes to find a gun to shoot themselves for that adrenaline to wear off or have a split second to stop what they are doing or to get caught or something to happen to change thier mind. But out in public with that gun on them, there is no stoping them and they are dead on that spot.  The article states that there are 46 suicides each day and that second-leading cause of death in americans 40 years old and younger.

Minimum Wage

I believe that everyone should be able to receive minimum wage for the work they do. It shouldn’t matter what job they have or who they are. When I was reading the article, I learned that disabled people, full-time college students, and people who receive tips, get paid less than minimum wage. This to me is unacceptable. Its hard enough to raise a family or to live in the economy has is. The standard rate for minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. To make less than that, would be hard to survive on. I also learned from the article that President Obama supports minimum wage and wanted to increase the rate to $9.50 an hour. This however, wasn’t accomplished. I was very disappointed to learn of this news because it would make people who live from pay check to pay check, a lot easier. If we get rid of minimum wage, it would be treating people unfairly because they are working hard and not getting paid enough money for it.

The arts are one of the first classes/extra-curricular activities to go when the school is making budget cuts. I believe that this is because they don’t understand how valuable the arts are to a child’s learning ability. The arts help students just as much as sports do and other extra-circular activates. When I say the arts I don’t just mean art class. The arts refer to music, dance, drama (plays), and of course the drawing art.  Some children and teenagers don’t like sports or are not athletic and are in need of other ways to express themselves. The arts can give them that and a lot more.

Some researchers believe that the arts help enhance problem solving skills, comprehension, mathematical appliances and even the scientific method. This makes sense to me because if you were to really think about it, the arts are just another tool to imply and practice these basic skills. When i was in band, I had learn how to  count out how many beats per measure and learn how many counts go to each note. Studies show that students who take classes in the arts do very well in school. What the arts also do is instill the participant to strive for excellence. The article gave a perfect example of this. The example was: “If a student were to take a math test and get an 85 percent on it, the student things they did a good job. However, if the student were in band and they played 85 percent of the notes right, then they would think they didn’t do well.” I totally understand were this is coming from because I played the trumpet in band until freshman year. I would always practice and strive to achieve the goal I set myself because I didn’t want to sound like a fool. However, with every study, there were some negatives researches found out about the arts. Not a lot is known about the cons because people didn’t want to focus on them. In any extra-curricular activity there are going to be negatives, it’s a guarantee.  Sports have negative on impacts on students, but that doesn’t affect the school board from standing behind and supporting them now doesn’t it…no. The article also point s out another good point that I can’t help but support. We started learning about the arts when we were little and exploring the house and outside. When we wanted to see how things work. If we were doing these things from the time we could walk, then why are people encouraging us to stop what comes naturally to us?