The Animacules

“I have trouble explaining my satisfaction with the animalcules” (pg.260) This quote taken from Mark A. Smith's article "Animacules and Other Little Subjects" is one which I find to be interesting to say the least. This quote conveys his fascination with the Animacule in ways that he cannot describe. He feels a sense of relaxation when he sees them. They are his food for thought by making him wonder that if this biological world is able to exist everyday without any interference in our world then what is out there. He wonders is there is "more" out there which is undiscovered. He compares his findings and feelings to those of an astronaut looking through a telescope. both of these actions are exactly the same conceptually yet are on two different levels. Looking through a microscope we are given a glimpse into a world so much smaller and yet larger, in a sense, at the same time than our own. Through the telescope it is the reverse microscope in a sense. It is the same concept as the Animcaule looking backwards through the microscope because when we look through the telescope we are given a look into what surrounds us on a much larger scale.
One thing that made me just want to close the book the entire way through the article is that its drowned out in useless information. the article just goes on and one about nothing. I cannot stand reading anything that is drowned out. that feeling when you just want to tell the author to shut up and move on. That's what I had the entire time. I think the first page was just about the way his microscope looked. Once again I did not like this article either.

Connect

What are the connections between the play "Twelfth Night" and the movie "Just Add Water"? From the beginning of the both the movie and the play we see that all sense of normalcy is lost. In Twelfth Night Viola is shipwrecked and under the impression that her brother Sebastian is dead. In Just Add Water the town is in the worst state that is has ever seen and it is also being over run by Dirk. No one has power anymore over what happens in the town except for Dirk and his gang. Also, the roles that each character plays and personalities that they all posses are similar in both Twelfth Night and Just Add Water. Malvolio and Dirk are comparable in that they are the ones who have the ego that is too big for their own good. Malvolio likes to believe that he is one of power when in he is just a servant of Olivia. In comparison, Dirk has the same ego, but he is able to use his attitude in order to get what he wants. In the end both of them are taken away because of their attitudes; Dirk being the actual criminal and Malvolio being one who was taken away for acting strange. The similarity here is that their egos are what both have done them in. They fueled their own fires.

Phalen vs. Carlin

Goerge Carlin has similar views to those of Phalen. Phalen thinks that we are not going to be able to evolve enough by the time that it is necessary and that ou fate is in the hands of the earth right now. Natural disasters and disease seem to be what he thinks will be our undoing. Largely these events might be caused by us. George Carlin's views are similar in that he believes that we will someday not be around because the earth will make us extinct. He does not think that we are cuasing it, in contrast to Phalen. Carlin believes that we are just "fleas" on the earth and it will someday get rid of us. The earth has been around for 4.5 billion years and he does not believe that 200 years of the production of plastic bags are going to do us in. If anything will do us in it will be natural disasters. But Carlin does not see these natrual disasters occurring in the same respect that Phelan does. Carlin believes that the earth is almost like a being in that it is self correcting and can fix itself. How are we supposed to fix the earth when we can even take care of ourselves? Carlins puts it. He claims that the earth is fine, but we are screwed up. they both have similar views, they are just taken and founded in different ways.

Run Rabbit Run

Whenever I think of the movie "Just Add Water" my mind jumps to the image of the cover of the poster for the movie "Holes". Both movie are about the struggles in a place where the lack of water has taken over their towns. They were both once beautiful and prosperous places but as we have seen, when disaster strikes it leaves a mark on the town. The ending to these two movies are enarly exactly the same, the towns have not seen rain for god knows how long and once it begins to rain, everyones lives are changed for the better and the criminals are taken away in handcuffs.
Also, not a concrete object but one thing that I cannot help but thinking about is the song "Run Rabbit Run" by Eminem. The song just talks about how much his life sucks yet he must prevail over everything around him that is stopping him. Ray does just the same, he prevails over his terrible life and makes change for himself.

X-Men

This article for the most part was extremely boring and too drowned out with facts and names of genes for me to really enjoy it. I did however find it very interesting and the entire time I could not stop thinking about the movie "X-Men". I'm still not entirely sure what this article was trying to prove to us. For the most part of the article Phelan writes about how mutations in genetics are able to occur. The mutation that he describes is the lactose intolerant gene. This is what causes adults to not be able to drink milk. Today this gene is common among a good amount of the population yet has become less and less common throughout time. According to his article "How We Evolve" the gene appeared about 8,000 years ago but did not become common in the population until about 3,000 years ago.
As for our "self-inflicted extinction" it seems that he is referring to all of the natural disasters that he mentioned about 2 paragraphs before. The only way that we could "inflict" extinction on ourselves is through global warming and destroying our climate. It will ultimately lead to our extinction because if our climate continues to get worse than it already is then it will threaten our ways of life and ultimately our lives entirely. I think Phelan is correct in this thinking because if we cannot fix our climate problems now then soon it will be too late.

Lets connect.....

After watching the Hanes commercial and the clip from "Just Add Water", there are some similar pieces that we could connect to each other. In the Hanes commercial we witnessed the man in the mustard yellow shirt going on a down escalator and watching around him as all of the little kids gave him dirty looks. Showing that he i effecting their future by not being environmentally friendly. As for the clip from "Just Add Water" Danny Devito is one who is doing almost the same thing in that he is constantly looking around while talking to Ray, where he is going to get his morning coffee from. Not thinking about the future. However, I also feel that his character is of course one which over all looks to the future. He is bringing in a gas station and perhaps some thing to bolster the town into a place where there is little hope left. Is this a sign of change for Trona or just another failed business venture. The other friend in the Hanes commercial is one which is looking to the future, with his straight ahead gaze, not thinking about what is going on around him. This is kind of like Ray because he wants a future for Trona, that is why he picks up the trash on the side of the road everyday. He has his straight forward glance at Danny Devito throughout most of the conversation and stares at Devito before the conversation until Ray gets his attention. Ray is always looking to the future un everything that he does.
What I found to be dominant in the commercial at first was how Danny Devito was looking up in a gaze to his newly built station, almost in awe of it it all, directing the man with the crane as to where to place his crown jewel. Yet once we see the Chevron sign the arrows are pointing down, foreshadowing the terrible future which s about to pursue. Once he opens his gas station, Dirk and his boys ransack the place because they feel pressed upon. Dirk wants to make it known that this is his town and that he will not have anyone trying to change it. Kind of reminds me of the ending of Home Alone 3 when the song plays and goes "This is my town.....". I don't remember the rest of the lyrics but the kid defends his home just as Dirk is defending "his" town.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcUGR955n-E

Why is every article I read always about global warming.....

Shockingly the article by John Broome "The Ethics of Climate Change" is about global warming and climate change. What I did not expect to see in this article was the use of ethics to describe how to tackle this issue. The last thing I wanted to read about was utilitarianism again this semester. Anyway, this article uses the idea of how compensating someone for the terrible things that we are doing to the environment. I do not see how this is even a logical thought, are we supposed to send checks or trees to people in the future. This is our problem right now and is up to us to handle it. I think John Broome would be better off writing about ays to fix the environment instead of using ethics to think up creative ways. This article in my opinion is terrible. It is a waste of time and paper (resources). The article does not tell us anything but philosophical nonsense. The real way to fix this problem is the environmentalist way. STOP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS. Right before I read this article I read one fo rmy economics class about how to reduce the ppm number of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That article had positive and realistic ideas as to fix this problem.
One other thing which I found to be interesting in here is that the idea of fixing society's well being through production. THat is the problem with our society today, we need to stop producing as much waste and start producing more environmentally efficient means of production. Things that in the long run will help us. Fixing our infrastructure is one, not giving someone an extra bathroom as mentioned in the article. He needs to use examples that mean something and actually have to do with global warming.