last day of class

well, that's the end i suppose. i'd like to say that i will continue this even though class is over, but i don't want to kid myself. it was good while it lasted and i have to say, i don't think i will ever have a class quite like this again. peace out wsc 2. it's been nice.

whenever there are discussions of tiny little organisms, i always think of the same thing. what if we were actually really tiny and something else thinks of us as tiny little microscopic things. people say that we would know if there was some living thing so much larger than us, but do the little pond scum creatures know about us? it reminds me of seussical the musical, where there is a whole tiny world on a speck of dust and they never knew until they were blown away one day. well, if we were a speck of dust, we could all think like george carlin. basically our whole universe could literally be in the hands of someone, or something else, and if they decide to squish us like the bug we may look like to them, reducing greenhouse gas emissions isn't really going to matter.

what's the same?

twelfth night and just add water are the same in that both stories deal with crazy people who can't help themselves. just add water: lazy neighbors who just sit around and wait for something to happen. twelfth night: duke orsino, who sends messengers everywhere instead talking to people himself. this is the normal for these people, and everyone around them. but something bad has to happen, the society has to hit a low, and the urge to make a change is awoken in someone, the do a bunch of crazy things, and then everyone is functional and everything ends up better than it was to begin with.

phelan v. carlin

phelan comments that humanity is self extincting. how does carlin's routine reinforce this notion?

i don't think carlin's routine at all reinforces the idea of self extinction. according to him, it's the planet killing us off, which is compeletely different to phelan who thinks that one day we will be able to have some technology that will let us change our own nature, by altering our genes. i like carlin's theory; we are going to go extinct and there is nothing we can do about it. it takes all the blame off us humans, making us feel better about throwing plastic bottles on the ground, because that's the way the earth wants it.

what image best exemplifies the film

when i think of just add water i think of the turtle, sitting in front of ray's house, just eating bright green lettuce. first of all, the turtle is eating better than the people. i just had to mention that because i thought of it whenever ray went into the rite valu and all the produce, if any was not looking too good. the turtle kinda reminded me of ray's neighbor. they have a lot in common. both just sitting around, both kind of helpless in their own way, but they seem content with how their lives are going. they pretty much represent the essence of trona.

deoxyribonucleic acid

after the first few sentences, I knew I was going to have a problem with this article. almost every one we have read so far is so factual with fancy italicized words like Australopithecus and blaming humans for all the problems with the earth, and not that the blame isn't correctly pointed, but what are these authors doing about fixing these problems besides writing 10 plus page pieces about saving the planet that are being printed in books, half of which will probably never be read, on paper...made from TREES. talk about waste.

so, i basically just skimmed through the rest of the article looking for interesting words to pop out at me. i think HapMap was my favorite, even though i still don't really know what it is, other than it has to do with the study done by former "fossil guy" Hawks. and ok, why Swedes and Asian Americans the two that get to lack the mutation? I mean, its not like they share ancestors or anything. oh and then my favorite....Darwin; the evolution god of natural selection. i really like the idea of it even though i think it's a total cop out to get out of saying that we really don't know everything about DNA, which for me just brought back thoughts of writing out the different strands in 10th grade biology. really, i think when we begin to talk about DNA and genes, we forget that it's actually stuff happening inside of us, humans, and not just some experimental test subject. it's pretty personal.

reverse outline for ethics of climate control

what we should be doing to help save the environment is also doing something that is ethical

how much should we care about future generations?

the benefits that would result from reducing greenhouse gas emissions outweigh the cost of the process

connections between broome's article and outside media:

the hanes commercial is very literal in the point that they want to make about doing something today that will help tomorrow. i would be just as angry as those kids if i had realized all the bad that was being done to the environment by people who don't care what it is going to look like when they are gone. it's one of the most selfish things, to destroy the home of someone else, before they are even born into it. especially if like broome mentions, it will destroy their chance of even existing.

ray's bum neighbor is an example of people who could make a difference, but aren't even close o helping out others when they have no drive to help themselves. the scene where they, well really just him, are reminiscing about old football glory days, when he was actually an equal to ray in the role of being functional in society, is him living in the past. he has no concept of the future because for him it will be just another day sitting on his front lawn. no change is coming for him. one of the most obvious ironic points that i noticed was when ray tells him to pay his rent, and he just kind of pushes it away, and we see that he has a beer in his hand. how can he still afford to drink but ray has to remind him to pay his rent? its also like when one of the neighbors in the middle of the debate about what to do to dirk suggests that they should all just not pay their rent. ray automatically knows that this will not solve anything in the long run. he is looking to the future.