Connections Made Between TWN and Just Add Water

TWN and Just Add Water both begin at a less than average state of normal. Illyria and Trona are both crazed places where the individuals are not very aware of others around them, nor the fact that life exists outside of their small civilization. A large emphasis can be put on disguise and the masking of individuals in both TWN and Just Add Water. Viola pretends to be a man throughout TWN. Ray and Nora mask their own insecurities and qualms with the town by going about their days with smiles on their faces. In both of these comedies, the individuals have to reach an all time low in order to be inspired to make a change. This relates to most of the articles we've read on climate change as well because society does not feel the need to be green until it faces "self-inflicted extinction." In TWN, the low point comes when Olivia marries Sebastian because there end up being two Cesarios according to Olivia, which causes havoc. Ray reaches a low point when he loses the adherence of his family. He catches his wife cheating and witnesses his son dealing drugs. Ray doesn't feel the need to change (similar to today's society and Viola in TWN) until his world comes crashing down.

Mark Smith's Animacules and Other Little Subjects

After reading his text, it is certain that Smith has a passion for life. Life on a microscopic level, pets, creatures that lurk in the water, or even humans: give Smith life and he'll ramble on for paragraphs about how much that various life form interests him. Although he cannot justify his fascination with the animalcules, I shall take a shot. I think part if his interest stems from the fact that nature itself is one of the cheapest, most intellectually stimulating, and available forms of entertainment out there in the world today. I think Smith likes to take advantage of nature for this reason because he knows it'll benefit him in the long-run. I think Smith's interest in animalcules mainly stems from his interest in the interconnectedness of natural beings and their environment. I share this interest with Smith. I am a sociology major and love studying how people are connected through groups and how they interact with each other given the division of said groups. I think Smith enjoys analyzing the similarities such as the fact that animalcules and humans are not so different because they're both eating all the time. He likes noticing that organisms all affect one another and are not as different from each other as they think.

I really enjoyed this article. His writing could have gone way over the reader's head if Smith decided to clutter his writing with biological terms and concepts. His decision to use figuration and an extensive amount of anecdotes made the reading interesting and enlightening. The anecdotes, especially, made the reading more like a conversation than a formal, scientific text like most of the other articles in the book were set up as. Smith's insight actually made me take a second look at the world around me, and how every living thing is connected in some way. Life does not just consist of one being; life is a collaborative group of many living things that coexist. Because we all coexist in this vast world, it is important to weigh our decisions accordingly and practice empathy with our fellow life forms.

George Carlin's The Planet is Fine

George Carlin's routine re-enforces Phelan's idea that the humanity is self-extincting. He points out that the earth has existed for far longer than humanity has, so therefore, it is fine. The earth doesn't need anymore meddling from humans. He points out that humans cannot even fix themselves, never mind a larger object such as the earth itself. There should be no attempts to save the planet until people attempt and succeed to save themselves. This is similar to what Phelan is saying. In his article, Phelan articulates that humans and the culture they have created are the most powerful too, yet, the worst potential enemy in remaining on earth. Similarly, humans should stop worrying about the environment so much as they should start worrying about how they are going to quickly adapt and keep up with the speedy climate change. Evolution is moving a lot quicker than biologists thought, but climate change is moving even quicker, so if humans don't start worrying about themselves, the environment will beat them to a pulp potentially ending in humanity's extinction. Depressing, right?

Focused Free Write - Symbol in Just Add Water

I think that Ray's tin box best exemplifies the film Just Add Water. Ray keeps the tin box in his car, and he's constantly referring back to it whenever he gets discouraged. The tin box and its contents represent hope. Inside it are pictures of Nora, which make Ray smile and also encourage him in a way to keep on going. He could have easily given up on himself and on the town on many occasions along the storyline, but he didn't. When he felt burnt out, he would refer back to his tin box and the pictures within, which restored his hope. The pictures send him back to the past, and thoughts of a better time. I think this symbol of hope represents the movie effectively because without some "ray" of hope, the town of Trona would have remained stuck in one place. The tin box and thoughts of Nora were Ray's source hope and encouragement to change the stagnant town of Trona.

Benjamin Phelan's "How We Evolve"

Phelan talks about "self-inflicted extinction" in his article "How We Evolve." The first three quarters of this article provided substantial evidence on how evolution works on a more technical level and how it is actually occurring quicker than biologists thought. Evolution used to be a rare concept that biologists and researchers did not really know much about because they did not have to tools to further such research. Now that the tools and technology are up to par, it has been discovered that evolution is actually moving at an incredible rate. "Up to 10 percent of the human genome appears to be evolving at the maximum rate, more quickly than ever before in human history" (193).

However, evolution may not be operating fast enough in order to keep up with the equally, ever-increasing speed of climate change. In as soon as five generations from now, humanity could be dealing with either extinction or a major evolution. Phelan calls this "self-inflicted extinction" because the culture we have created has provided the tools for us to advance into a complex society, yet it has also destroyed the tools like natural resources and a healthy environment necessary for our sustenance. In order for us to survive on this earth, science will have to evolve new tools that can control aspects of evolution. The culture we have created is our best friend, yet our worst enemy. A solution must be sought out using the same means we used to get ourselves in this mess before we're in too deep over our heads.

John Broome's "The Effect of Climate Change"

I do not think that examining climate change through a market-lens is the best way to go. Broome's essay was heavy on technical terms and hard to relate to. Through his writing, it was difficult to connect both issues being presented. Broome attempted to analyze climate change through a market economy. He believes that the more well-off an individual is, the more greenhouse gases he or she will emit into the environment because he or she has the means and money to do so. This is a difficult conclusion to draw because intent is also an issue at hand. Given the money, technology, and transportation, poorer people would most likely follow suit in terms of emitting greenhouse gases. This is not a safe conclusion to draw anyway because the lifestyles of many lower class individuals are not necessarily eco-friendly because they do not have the money to accumulate as many material goods. In a previous article, it was said that poor people actually end up carrying a heavier carbon footprint. Studies were done relating the significant correlation between obesity, poor people, and the carbon they emit. Poorer people tend to be obese and buy a lot of fast food, and food that is not made in a sustainable way. They also tend to be the ones driving around everywhere. Based on information like this, it is difficult to make the claim that the more well-off one is, the more greenhouse gases they emit into the environment.

I think it is difficult to look at climate change through the lens of a market economy. There is more to climate change then just economic issues. Human intent, the course of nature, and the expansion of technology must all be taken into account. Just because you're rich, does not mean you are any more of a burden to the environment than the next guy. It is humanity as a whole that must take a look at their actions and change them together. Solving the problem that is climate change is not an equation that can be solved by simple computation. It is more of an open-ended essay that needs to be developed by the writer over time. Therefore, I do not agree with Broome's conclusions made in his essay.

Blogging About Blogging

I think blogging is one of the best ways for this generation to communicate their ideas productively and in a new-age sort of manner. Students are constantly on their computers knowing that they are procrastinating and not doing the assignments they should be. However, having a blog as an assignment is much less intimidating seeing as how it is just another tab you open up on your search engine. Blogging also allows students to open up more than they would in a formal piece of writing because the blogs one follows are those of their individuals. Their audience is not just a teacher, but a number of students having the same qualms with completing homework as they do. Blogging enables a student to loosen up his or her language and opens up the possibility of having other students comment, criticize, and offer feedback on mini-writing assignments. This leads to my next point. There is no extensive writing assignment due on a blog. It is a cumulative effort of mini-assignments. I know when I blog, I let my fingers and thoughts just go and say what I want to say. Relating to Derrida's fear of writing, I make sure that when I blog I relinquish the beast and say what I want to say. I personally love blogging considering this is one of three that I have. Granted my other two are mostly photographs and music, this one like the others, makes me feel I can say what I truly want to say without the fear of it being harshly criticized solely by a teacher. I do not think simply blogging is appropriate for a class, but I think it is a great complement.

Just Add Water: Unanswered Questions

1. Ray's personality confuses me. Is he truly optimistic inside and out?

2. What kind of father takes his son to Betsy's to lose his virginity? Does he honestly believe in his choice?

3. Has Ray totally given up with Edward?

4. Is the fact that Charlene is sleeping with Ray's brother the only thing she has to hide? I feel like she still acts really uncomfortable and not simply from the guilt of cheating.

5. What's Nora's story? Is she single? Does she like Ray? Why does she stick around Trona?

6. What's in Ray's tin can?

This film reminds me of the book Holes where the town used to be a colorful, happening place to live, but because of environmental matters is not anymore. Trona is like the town in Holes because it is now a nuclear waste site that has not seen rain for days on end. This film also reminds me of a Wes Anderson film because of the way it is shot and written. There's a lot of awkward conversation, moments of silence, and simplicity in the way the people are portrayed. Instead of filming the best of times in the character's lives, the writer and director of this movie made it a point to draw on the mundane moments as well because those can be equally as important. On that note, I thought about Roebke's idea of things not existing until we observe them. This could make sense in this movie. For example, one may not recognize or question why Ray keeps going back to that tin can until the moment in the movie where they reveal what it is. The tin can does not exist until it is recognized by the viewer.

I think Wendell Berry would like the society portrayed in this movie even though they appear to be rather impoverished. They do not waste much because they cannot afford much. In this way, it makes me second guess Berry's idea. Sure, it is possible to be economically comfortable and ecologically friendly as well, but in most cases, it's the simpler folks who cannot afford much that are not doing much to abuse our environment. The individuals in Trona may not be able to afford lots of electronics, stress education, or maintain more commercial stores, but what they're saving in the environment, they're replacing in the behavior of the people. The adults bum and booze around in their front yards, the teens make drug deals and apparently pride themselves in going to brothels, and the younger kids ride dirt bikes on deserted football fields. This doesn't appear a great trade-off to me. It would be nice to find a happy medium between treating the environment well and raising valuable citizens, but what else is new?

Focused Free Write - Am I a writer?

A writer is anyone who has the capacity to express his/herself through the art of language, creativity, and written form. The type of writing I'm talking about does not have to be that which would be evident on a job application, graded essay, or anything being critically analyzed by another person. A writer is someone who jots notes down on paper, someone who stays up till the early morning getting thoughts on paper because the ideas would otherwise steep and boil up in his or her brain.

It is hard to define a writer. I believe everyone has the capacity to write, but there's an enormous stigma attached to the idea of being a writer being that one who writes is a bookworm, philosophical thinker, or an English major. Personally, I am not an English major, nor do I spend all of my time with a pen in my hand. Being a sociology major, I do complete a considerable amount of writing assignments, and do enjoy research writing. I consider myself a writer mostly because writing is a way for me to get my inner thoughts on paper when they are fresh in my mind. It is something I turn to on my own, not because it is forced upon me from outside forces like teachers. For me, it's therapy; the paper's a neutral friend who'll absorb the ink, preserve my thoughts, and help me move on. Writing may not be the therapeutic mode for everyone, but I find it very helpful.

Michael Specter's "Big Foot"

Michael Specter defines food miles as the distance a product travels from the farm to your home. It is a hefty concept weighing how much fuel is being used to transport food to different places. Specter and the researchers behind such a concept are trying to communicate that food may be fresh, organic, and manufactured by low-fuel standards, but the distance the food travels can make or break whether or not the food is actually good for the environment. I agree with Wilkington's statement about this era being one of creative destruction. I think the world's lack of creativity goes along with too much technology and overall laziness. If people opened up their minds to more than just technology as the safe-bet solution, I think our society could benefit in environmental, social, and economic ways. Americans have this idea that every solution requires lots of machines, lots of money, and lots of fuel. This is not always necessarily the case, and it is a philosophy that has been ingrained in the mind of individuals. Therefore, it will be very difficult for it to change. Creativity must be resurrected in the minds and solutions of individuals because seeing such a quality disappear in the American culture would be an extreme disappointment. What would the country then pride itself in?

I do feel personally responsible for global warming. I find that when I came to school, I got very lazy in terms of trying to be as eco-friendly as possible. In high school, I brought my coffee into school every morning in a thermos. Here, I go through two to three cups a day buying coffee because coffeemakers are not allowed in the dorms. I'm not trying to blame the school for what can also be deemed my laziness, but Hofstra does not only make it impossible for avid coffee-drinkers to reduce waste, but they charge you an arm and a leg to get your daily dose of caffeine. On the other hand, I find myself walking everywhere and reducing my carbon footprint in those regards. For a simple trip to the mall or the train station, my house jam as many kids as possible into the same car and make one trip. This is cheap and environmentally friendly. I cannot wait to live on my own to be in control of my food, laundry, electricity, and transportation. These are the most influential systems that can make or break whether or not an individual is being wasteful or not. I helped make my family's household an environmentally aware threshold, and I can't wait to do so when I end up purchasing my own place.

Joshua Roebke's "The Reality Tests"

"Do you really believe that the moon exists only when you look at it?" Such has been inquired by Albert Einstein while on the discussion of quantum mechanics' implications for reality. I do not fully buy into the fact that we create what we observe, and that things are evident because we perceive them being there. I think that properties we want to observe exist before we actually observe them. Sure, we cannot perceive the world as it exists fundamentally, such as in the terms of atoms and the building blocks of matter, but it is widely agreed and proven that there are physical components of matter that compose items available for our viewing. Atoms and tiny particles exist before we measure them, so why wouldn't they exist before we observe them? Properties and items exist before we observe them because if one individual just happens to no observe one item presented to them, another individual will come by and observe what the other had not. I think such a statement made about observation and existence is too broad because the power to observe is different between individuals.

Roebke attempts to conquer a very complex idea in reference to quantum physics. I do not even know if I fully understood what his thesis was, so I would say it was very weak. Most of the other articles in the book did a great job of connecting more complex ideas like global warming, e-waste, and the internet to issues with humanity that were easy for the reader to connect to. There was no accessible connection that was clearly made between the individual reading and the theory of quantum physics besides the mere example of perceiving the color of a blue couch. There was nothing tangible available in his article that could convince me about these reality tests because the concepts went over my head. All of the other articles did a good job of bringing the material down to eye level for the assumed un-knowledgable individual. Roebke's did not, and in this way, I believe he had a rather weak argument.

Wendell Berry's "Faustian Economics"

"The life of this world is small to those who think it is, and the desire to enlarge it makes it smaller, and can reduce it to finally nothing." In his article, Wendell Berry submits heavy claims as to society's deluded idea of limitlessness. He stresses that few things actually do have limits nowadays, or rather, limits that Americans would like to acknowledge. There is limitless wealth, growth, want, money, energy, and even debt. He does not think it wise that our society is founded on the basis of limitlessness because when the limits are recognized and pushed as far as they can do, everyone will just get hurt. The American way of life has become one established on waste, greed, and foolishness. Berry is very straightforward and rather harsh in the manner he addresses his thoughts, commenting on America as a possessing a "national insanity."

Berry addresses the country's fantasy of limitlessness as a concept of moral minimalism as well. As more technology and machines are added to the equation in order to be efficient at any cost, the idea of complex thinking disappears. People appear "to be genuinely embarrassed by any solution to any problem that does not involve high technology, a great expenditure of energy, or a big machine." In striving for ultimate freedom, Americans are trying to escape the limited nature of the world, but this is in fact, impossible because abusing resources will eventually catch up with us. Limits and restraints must be put on Americans in order to relieve them of their delusional ideas.

Berry uses the texts of Christopher Marlowe's Tragical History of Dr. Faustus and John Milton's Paradise Lost to reiterate and substantiate his thoughts on limitlessness in the human mentality. He seeks data from many political happenings such as summits held on alternate energy and statistics involving the burning of fossil fuels. He uses this data to stress that Americans are under the misunderstanding that limits constitute confinement. This is untrue seeing as how limits are necessary in order for society to function properly. Berry believes that Americans need to strongly re-evaluate the economic and environmental limits on this world. We, as guests to this planet, need to learn how to preserve and sustain the earth, economy, and morality since another world will not be given to us for mere abuse.

Freewrite: Waste and Greed

Greed is glancing at the power-strip under your desk and consciously viewing each and every occupied outlet. Your eyes follow the twisting veins that lead straight to the source that is pumping, pumping away, sucking the fuel from a source you probably could not describe in depth if you tried. To unplug one of the appliances would be to compromise flow and order of one's life. Necessary? No. Greedy? By, all means yes.

Waste is grabbing a cup of coffee from Starbucks every morning before work year after year. The smell of coffee beans must make the environment cringe a little bit knowing that there are individuals on automatic pilot who grab their venti lattes in the same green and black cups every morning simply to discard of the cup in the nearest trash receptacle.

Waste with a side of greed is having individual items from a grocery store placed in separate plastic bags for the sake of not mixing fresh and non-perishable items. When did we all become so unaware? When did we stop caring?

Jacques Derrida: Fear of Writing

Derrida appears to have a fear of letting his writing and thoughts go to a point where he may end up hurting the feelings or viewpoints of a particular colleague or fellow writer. For Derrida, his ideas and writings are powerful and purposeful at all times. He finds it necessary to write down the ideas that come to his mind, but this raw quality to his writing also produces fear. He does not want to harm others in the relinquishing of his heartfelt opinions, yet at the same time, he does not want to alter his writing in a way that would ruin its genuine nature. Derrida does entrust the written word with a particular power. He mentions that he has never revoked anything that he has written, meaning, the writing itself has power and authority enough over him to remain on the page. Writing, to him, is raw subject matter from his mind that makes its way to the paper in order to inform himself and other individuals of his ideals. Derrida entrusts an absurd amount of power in the written word. The written word has such a power over Derrida that it mulls over in his mind at times when he is about to nap or fall asleep as he addresses in the video.

I write freely sometimes at night, and it is there that I experience some anxiety in regards to the power of my writing. I will write after fights or any slip-ups I experience throughout the day. Sometimes a fear comes over me briefly that someone will read what I have written and know that it is about them, and that they'll take major offense. Another part of me doesn't care who reads it and what they think of it; it's a piece of my writing that I'm proud of and nobody can do anything to change my feeling about that. Writing is one of the best ways to draft one's feelings. For me, it provides a text for future confrontations I would like to make with the people I get in little conflicts with, who make me feel the necessity to write. In this way, I do realize the power of what I write, but I strongly believe in allowing written word to possess this power because it is a great tool that can be used by individuals.