A Bottle of Turtles

In Thomas Friedman's 30 Little Turtles he tells of how he read a paragraph to 20 year old Indians and got a standing ovation. It was not meant to have him praised for reading it, its to show these young men and women how to properly speak english by softening "their t's and rolling their r's" (Friedman 176).

The purpose of Friedman's article is to get the attention of younger and older people to show that you can change lives of people, by teaching them new skills and by taking the time out of our lives to help others learn new and useful skills.

This is a good article that Friedman wrote, it opens up jobs for those who would be making bare minimum in other jobs. Now the young Indian men and women are able to start making $200-$300 a month which to us is not alot but to them its so much more. Of course they don't keep all the money they share it with their families so that they can all benefit from these jobs in the call centers.

Its amazing how teaching people to speak proper english can change someone's life. It gives people self-confidence and leads them away from becoming "suicide bombers in waiting" (Friedman 177).

This article made me feel pleased that with teaching someone something so small he was able to change peoples lives in such a way drastic way. I hope that some day I could change someones life like Friedman did.

Work cited:

Friedman, Thomas. “30 Little Turtles.” Perspectives on Contemporary Issues. Ed. Katherine Ackley, Kim Blank, and Stephen Hume. Toronto: Nelson, 2008. 176 – 177. Print.

I can't help but wonder

In Jim Holt's Code-Breaker he talks of a research scientist named Alan Turing. Turing was murdered not just because he made discoveries but because he was interested in men. Even in the 1954 people seemed to be uneasy about people who were different or who were interested in the same sex.

Holt's purpose of the essay is to inform people that no matter how smart or inventive you are, you will still be judged not only by what you do but because of who you are and what your interests are, be them personal or work related.

Turing was the creator of the computer he figured out while tinkering that he was able to build a switchboard that would send messages to a network. However, it was John von Neumann "who would later be credited with innovations in computer architecture that Turing himself had pioneered" (Holt 341).

Who could believe that Turing a genius of his time would commit suicide? After he was convicted of being homosexual and subject to injections of male horomones to turn into a heterosexual, his life started "a slow, sad decent into grief and madness" (Holt 345), but I don't believe that it would make him want to take his own life and Leavitt didn't believe that either. Why would a man who "solved the most important logic problem of his time, saved countless lives by defeating a Nazi code, conceived the computer, and rethought how mind arises from matter" (Holt 346) could kill himself?

Why could someone want to kill Turing? Could it have been because he was gay? What if he kept his personal life a secret, would he have lived a full life?

In The Time of War, Women Cry Out

In Jennifer Turpin's essay, "Women Confronting War" she tells of women who suffer from the effects of war from being a direct casuality to sexual violence. Men are views as the make of war while women make peace. Turpin is telling us that although war affects the men it is ultimately the women that suffer the consiquences.

Turpin wrote this essay to get the attention of people every where who are directly affected and those who are not. War is causing more damage to women then it is to the men and it is seen during the war as more women and children became casualities.

During the war many women were raped between "August 1990 and February 1991 as many as 3,200" (Turpin, pg. 327). Why do men believe that "rape as a part of military life"(Turpin, pg. 327) is okay? Why didn't anyone speak up against these acts against women?

It is clear that men were brought up differently so why is it when they go to war they forget their upbringing and commit these acts of violence against women? Will they ever be able to go back to civilian life after the war?

What were they thinking?

In Gary Keck's essay, "There Are No Lessons To Be Learned From Littleton", he is explaining how the school shootings occured and why no one should follow suite in repeating the mistakes made in Littleton.

Keck is trying to inform us that by putting these horrific occurences on the news it could lead to more shootings in our schools. He does not try to speculate how or why the shootings happened, he just try's to grab our attention by listing how some of these things could have contributed to the shootings. "Particular violent events are heavily covered by the news media precisely because they are unusual and thus unrepresentative of broader categories of crime and violence."

The news is watched mostly by adults, but lately more and more children have been watching the news. If parents spoke to their children after the broadcasting then perhaps they could inform them of why someone might have done that, and why they should never think of doing something like. Its not to say that all students will have these violent tendencies but just to make sure parents should avoid having the children in the room when they are going to watch the news especially when they see the clip of what is going to be shown.

I can't imagine what is going through the students mind when they decided that a shooting would be the best way to get their point across.  How would you tell your children about this occurence? And what steps are you willing to take to make sure that they never have to witness the events on the news, knowing that you can't protect them forever even if we wanted to.

How can we stop the violence?

In the article "Aggression: The Impact Of Media Violence" by Sissela Bok she tells of the violent behaviour of people, be them children, adolesence or adults after they view programs that contain violence.

Bok tells of how the media can affect us, and in most cases it tends to be for the worse. Almost every day there seems to be some violence that takes place that finds its way onto the news, and for some who watch this clips start to have aggressive behaviour shortly after watching. There is no real way to prevent these aggressions other then to stop putting violent scences on the television. But then it doesn't allow for many ratings on the channels its broadcasting on.

Bok uses pathos in her work to get her point across about the violence that goes on in the world after media viewings, it is when she is directing the attention to the media that we instantly think of the news. She then goes on the say that after men viewed "violent pornography the levels of aggression toward women have been shown to go up". There is nothing appropriate about aggressive sex, and all the men walk away with is that its better to inflict pain onto someone ie: rape.

We all tune into the news, read news papers or use the internet to see what is going on in the world, but when we see anything to do with violence it becomes more clear that this world has nothing but violence and yet when we watch the news we see more of it. There has to be a way to prevent the media from broadcasting violence on television. I don't want any child to see what goes on in the world and have them believe that it is okay. They now have an "epidemic of children killing children".

Should we allow our children to see what is going on in the world? The violence that is all around us? Should they have to live in fear of getting killed by another child they're age? What has this world come to?

HELP! I NEED SOME BODY!!

In the lecture "Pandemic: My Country Is On Its Knees" by Stephen Lewis, he describes his travels to South Africa in the 1960s. Stephen speaks of how excited he was after stepping onto the soil; "the music, the energy, the kindness, the generosity"; everything about this newly independent country was exciting. It wasn't until Stephen travelled back to South Africa that he was shocked to see how much it had changed. South Africa wasn't "struggling under the weight of oppression, disease and dispair", it was thought that it would triumph over everything, however, it became "induced by Structural Adjustment Programs" and "Aids". Africa has been torn apart by this pandemic, the world needs to know what is truly going on, so that we can help those in desperate need of our help.

With many African doctors being "poeched" into going to the United Kingdom, it leaves little to no doctors around to take care of the sick. Stephen can only describe the hosiptals as a "picture right out of dante", 2 people per bed with someone underneath laying on the concrete floor. They have to find anyone to give out the antiretroviral drug and with only one nurse on the floor for 10 hours the situation is "impossible".

Stephen goes on to say that some help is being done from groups like the PMTCT and MSF, but Africa is still in need of more help. Stephen is opening our eyes to what is going on to make us realize that everyone is capable of helping, so why isn't more being done?

What can I do to help? And what are you willing to do to help?

How your life and times have changed

Margaret Atwood a Canadian born Author who has recieved many awards and honourary degrees. She is a poet, essayist, and a critic among other great attributes. Her views on other cultures are insightful and makes you think about your role in the world. It is in her work that we find humour and truth.

In the story, "Letters to America" by Margaret Atwood, she speaks of her affection towards her memories of the American culture. Then she starts to speak of the negative effects that have happened, such as the war in Iraq and the ever consuming debt. Its clear that everything that has happened in America has its repercussions on Canadians, but the world has changed its views on how they view Americans.

Atwood expresses her disappointment of the downfall of the American culture. She makes a point of stating that "some of us used to be you; some of us wanted to be you; and some of you used to be us". We are neighbours as makes sure to note that even in history we were lumped together with Americans. Its clear that the Atwood disagrees with the war in Iraq the need to "rampage, many lesser plants and animals" in the way of conquering another place after a great devistation. The amount of money the Americans have spent on military equipment has caused them to go into debt, do they need to spend at an alarming rate? At the rate they are going they won't be able to "produce anything".

It is a "letter to Americans", but its a wake up call to Canadians, we've followed under their leadership, helped them in times of hardship, and when the time comes we will go straight down the "plughole" with them.

What would Americans think if we stopped helping them in their ill-thoughout plans?