BBC V.S. Blogs

I have just read a few articles about the incidents of Tibet from both BBC and people's blogs. Since I am not too into its history and I didn't know much about Tibet, so I won't be judging which one is right. What I would say is this: The BBC News focuses on the incidents that had happened, and the blogs are people's opinions base on their knowledge. For example, one of the blogs has comments of an argument between the oner of the blog and another viewer. The viewer stated that she/he believes the West should go ahead and use military power to stop China and teach China to be civilized. The owner of the blog argues back and says if it were okay for the West to use military to control China, then it should also be okay for China to use military to control Tibet. I love that argument. It's sweet and concise. But anyway, in my opinion, we shouldn't only focus on how the Tibetan feel because they are obviously unhappy for being restricted. We should also try to see what China says. 

Grizzly Man Reflection.

Timothy Treadwell, the film maker of the movie, Grizzly Man, showed all of his attitude toward the nature world from his film. His goal was to send people the message that we should all have respect to the natural. Unfortunately, he died in the middle of his filming.

Before I talk about how I feel about Timothy's action, I am first going to say what I think of the video. It is indeed something I have never seen before. I have never seen a film of a man that goes and lives in the wild life without any weapons or any protective tools. He showed a lot of love to the nature throughout out the film and it's unlike most of the other documentaries, his film does not seem like a propaganda.

It not only has some thoughtful insight that is spread by a well done manner, but also shows you a lot of Timothy's background information so the audience could be more familiarize with him. However, one thing I didn't like about the film is that it didn't show the final shot he had; the one that showed his death. It's not that I was hoping to see some killing scenes. I thought it would be more touching if it even shows you Tim's reaction when he was being beaten up by his most beloved bears.

What about my thoughts of the film? Like I mentioned above, it is a very well done documentary, and the message was pretty clear. And of course, Timothy was a great man. Not a lot of people have the guts to try doing something that the other people haven't done, and only a very few people are willing to give up everything for what they truly love. Having said that, I still think he was a bit too naive. Japanese Bushido has a saying, "Power without justice is violence; Justice without power is buncombe." Timothy has a lot of love to the nature and the bears and he wanted the rest of us to do the same thing, which is great, but he should not have gone into the wild and died so soon. I agree with his point that most people will remember him only if he dies, however, if he wanted to die, he should have planned out something bigger. Otherwise it seemed like he was just a guy who loved nature but ended up eaten by a bear. 

Voice of a story.

The story, Hero, from "Fiction On Web.com"is done by a narrative form. I like how the voice was, because it makes me feel like I am actually listening to him speaking to me about his story.

The story told by an obese narrator. He is like the loser in the town and people just hates him. One day, another obese guy, who is a lot bigger than the narrator, moved into the town. Ironically the other people liked him. While reading the story you would see that the narrator really is a loser. He is just a poor guy, who is fat, ugly, and has no friends.

The author has done a great job by addressing how the narrator thinks and feels. I could almost feel exactly how the narrator felt when I was reading his story. His casual way of speaking allows me to understand what kind of person he is, the jealousy he had, and the anger he felt.

Voices of stories are very important. It not only makes the story unique and interesting but also makes you to be able to familiarize with the characters and the story setting. I don't like to read things that are written as if it were a documentary or a text book. The story is dead if there is no voice.

Arctic Tale

The movie, Arctic Tale, shows the polar bears' life. It shows you all the way from the mother bear started to train her kids all the way up to her death and eventually her children's grown up life. Does it show that animals have feelings and emotions? I would say it does show that in our point of view. For us, we can say that the mother bear loves her children and she showed that by protecting them, feeding them, and teaching them about life. However, she might have done all that just because she didn't want her children to die so soon or else they wouldn't be able to pass out her gene. I would like to persuade myself that animals do have feelings and emotions, though. That way both makes me believe it is more important to protect and care about them and make me have more of the sense that we, the human beings, are not any higher than the other creature.

Reviews?

I read reviews about nearly everything just for fun. The main reason that I like reading reviews is that I like to see what the other people's complains and concerns are, or maybe even how they support the things that I thought were bad. I often try to be as specific as possible when someone asks me for an opinion. What I have always done is simply first give a brief idea of what it is. I would start it off with the product's positive points, then go into the things I didn't like about and explain why. If possible, I always thought it's better to give out my own opinion of the ways to improve it, that way I don't make myself to be unreasonable.

Not in favor of being a formal person, I never tried to learn the "professional" way of writing reviews. I like it when I can keep things in my own style, however, the site about the tips of writing book reviews gave me a broader sense of how many other elements I could have in reviews. For example, one of the tips was to "try using a few short quotes from the book to illustrate your points." I don't think I have ever done something like that and I think it's a good idea. It not only supports your point, but also let the readers know what kind of things and style they would be reading if they were to read the book.

I have seen a lot of game reviews from the Internet. The reviewer didn't just tell you what he thinks the flaws are; he demonstrates it so you can see it with your own eyes and judge it yourself. Unfortunately, the language he uses is inappropriate at schools, otherwise it would be a good example to show everybody of how a good review can be like.

Reflection on Student 2.0

The blog I read was by a student called Nicole Kim. She talked about how schools .shouldn't be a place that is all about teachers preaching to the students. She believes that schools should be more of a place where students can have a variety in learning other than just reading the books and listening to the teachers.I thought that her idea of what a school should be is actually pretty similar to our school. Our school doesn't really use any text book, and each teacher has a different way of teaching. Some shows videos, some has activities with the students, and some gives questions and allow the students to present in the way they would like to. I agree that schools shouldn't be all about reading and listening, because that is not what the reality is about. We need to be able to present what we know, and make connections between different ideas that we learned.

Fast-Food Nation

I thought this movie is really well done in the way that it doesn’t show up like a propaganda. It first shows how many people rely on fast-food restaurants, today, then it moves to the perspective from the workers in the slaughter house. At the end, it actually leaves the choice for you to decide whether you would still like to eat those kind of foods. Just that the consequences, which the movie showed, could gross you out.
The reason that people nowadays rely on fast-food restaurants, is pretty similar to my first semester’s global ethics’ final assessment’s topic; “Time and Money.” You don’t really have to wait when you are eating in a fast-food restaurant. In fact, most people buy their foods by something called the Drive’thru, which allow you to order your meals when you’re in your car so you continue driving and have your meal on your way to business or anything. Fast-food restaurants are often a lot cheaper than the other restaurants are. Therefore, more people rely on them because they save both time and money. Eventually, in one hand, the people become the sponsors by relying on them.

2nd Expedition Reflection

1) Do we gave an ethical responsibility toward animals? We should give an ethical responsibility toward animals. Especially the ones we “owned” When we “buy” an animal as a pet, it doesn’t exactly mean we “own” it. It simply means that we are responsible for its future once we bought it. Also, it’s a living creature. I don’t think any one of us has the right to decide what we want to do about them, which are not only the ones in the pet shop but also the wild ones. We don’t have the rights to take anything from the animals. Though, most of us did not give an ethical responsibility toward them. A lot of people treat animals as if they either own it or they are more superior than the animals, so they could do whatever they wanted to do.

2) Do animals have emotions? Give examples if possible. I believe animals have emotions and feelings, but I don’t have any proof for it. It doesn’t mean they actually have emotions and feelings if I say that a dog would dodge, scream and be afraid of you if you kick it. It might be its instinct for living. If animals wouldn’t dodge from danger actions, they would extinct. However, I always believe that animals have feelings. In fact, I even believe the things we made have feelings. I don’t have any example for this believe. I would say it’s more of a moral thing than a scientific proof thing.

The Gods Must Be Crazy.

The movie shows the society of both the “Takers” and the “Leavers.” It shows that the Leavers don’t own anything in their society. They treat the trees as something that belongs to the Earth. They don’t own the trees even though they live with them. When they hunt, they would apologize and explain to the animals why they killed them. After they got the animal’s meat, they wouldn’t just throw the rest of the body away. They would use us the entire animal so nothing is wasted. For example, they not only ate the snakes but also used their skins to make tools or products. On the other side, it shows us the Takers’ society, which is how we live. The movie clearly shows the difference by having a leaver who enters the takers’ world. He did not understand the rules we have created. Because he didn’t understand the rules, the actions he made us, the audience who are also the takers, realize how much more difficult we are making our lives to be. All the tools from us were made due to the human’s needs. We need them and so we create them. We create them because we think they cam make our live a lot easier. In order to make the tools function, we started to set some rules. However, we never truly understand that in order to master those tools and follow the rules we need to study. Eventually, most of us would be “wasting” our lives by just following those rules.
In the movie, it shows us the different value from the Takers and the Leavers. It was similar to what Ishmael has pointed out, which is that Takers take more than what they needed just in case one day the gods decide it’s their turn to be gone so they will have foods to survive. What the Takers do is that they take the things from the Earth, store them, keep them as if they were “their” goods, and use them whenever they need to. From the movie, the main character had once gone into the Takers’ world. He saw a group of sheep, which were belong to a herder, eating grass. The bush-man's first reaction was to hunt one to satisfy his hunger. However, the herder then called the police and got his sheep back. The bush-man was confused because he thought he hunted it himself from the “natural world.” That is the difference between the Takers and the Leavers. Takers own things and the Leavers don’t. The bush-man even wanted to share the sheep he got to the police and the herder, because from hie belief, he believes that the sheep does not belong to anyone. The sheep’s meat can be eaten by anyone who was hungry and needed it.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.

Although I have never been shopping in Wal-Mart, I have had of its name and known about its low prices, before. Wal-Mart can get a lot of costumers, is mainly for the reason that it has very low prices. People always go for the cheaper place for shopping. However, do they know the reason why Wal-Mart can be so cheap? I never knew the answer until we saw the movie, “Wal-Mart:The High Cost of Low Price”, in class. It shows us the employers’ opinion about their jobs and earnings. Most of them did not get enough payment to afford insurance, which protects them when they accidentally hurt themselves at job. Mal-Mart also pays the Chinese to help produce their produces, because Chinese labors are way cheaper than American labors are. The problem is that Wal-Mart pays extremely low salary to the Chinese labors while they actually sell the products, which are made by the Chinese, in the price that seem pretty low to the American costumers, but is a lot higher than what the Chinese labors had earned. The problem here is that the Chinese labors are living in bad conditions and they can not really help it because their salaries are only enough for them to get foods and stay alive. At the same time, the costumers of Wal-Mart did not know anything about this fact. They did not know that low price they are buying, today, is built by the people who are hardly earning anything. This is pretty similar to the idea of the movie, “Blood Diamond”, which is about the people with higher power were controlling the other Africans they have caught, to help them dig diamonds. The Africans that were actually doing the hard work did not get paid, while the ones that were above them, could sit there, wait for the labors to get the diamonds, and then they can sell those diamonds. Of course, it’s the people that are above the labors, are gaining something from those diamonds. Not the ones who found the diamonds.

Reflection From Jane Goodall's Talk

"We have found after all there isn't a sharp line dividing us from the animal kingdom. It's a wazzy line. It's getting wazzier all the time as we find the animals doing things.", says Jane Goodall. She points put the fact that humans are not superior than the other animals. Most people used to believe that we, the human beings, are on the upper level above the rest of the animals, which causes some problems. For example, because they believe we are superior, so it would be a lot easier for them to kill the other animals. It would become that we think we can do anything to them, because we are higher than they are.

The other amusing thing she has pointed out, is that there are about 50 different chemicals in all of our bodies that we did not have in 50 years ago. "...we are abusing the great power we have and we are destroying the world. In the developed world, in a way it's worse..." she says, "...and the diseases increase in places with filthy toxic, wastes, and dump. We're harming ourselves, as well as to th other animals, as well as to the mother nature." It's similar to what we have read in Ishmael. Ismael also brought up the point that this isn't "our" Earth. Most of us treat this Earth as if it were "our" property, and so we could do anything we desire. Our ignorance is what drags everything down. We do things when we are not sure what will happen next. We do them just because we are blinded by the benefits, but we don't usually realize what comes after that.

The last, and my favorite one from her is her telling that everyone has th role in play. It's not only some of us who caused the problems but also what all of us have done that caused a whole lot of trouble we are facing today. E.O.Weilson has said something pretty similar. He said that the extinction of just one kind of insect can destroy the whole world. Although insects are small, they can be big and influential. We can not put all the blame on the hunters, the people who dump all the wastes, the ones who cut down the trees, etc. The little things we do everyday, can make a difference if you put them all together. It's like the extinction of one kind of insect. They are small if you only see them as "an insect", but they are huge, if you can look at the bigger picture.

GE = Global Ethics

Global Ethics is pretty much like the study of humanities but focus more on the ethical problems. For example, we learned about being aware of what the humans have done that effect the other living creatures' life.