Oh Blogs, How Art Thou?

Our topics this year have been interesting but I was not excited about writing a good portion of them. I know no one looks forward to homework, but homework should at least be entertaining sometimes. A lot of the given topics needed a lot of thought to write 300 words while others did not seem at all interesting. I enjoyed writing about the opinions on online newspaper sites. We could choose an article or an opinion of an article that we actually liked and wanted to write about. I also liked the days where we could write about anything we wanted. That opened the floor a whole lot more than the Friday assignments even though we somewhat had free reign on those days as well. Overall, I wish we had more fun topics. Maybe analyze videos or news stories that would make a person laugh. A good topic may be to write about the funniest thing you have ever said or done. People would enjoy writing about that. It is as subject that requires little thought but people may look forward to writing it instead of putting it off until the last minute. Another possible topic is if you could be any animal other than a human what would you be and why? This topic requires more thought than the first one but it is also very interesting. I guess students would like more articles or blog topics that they could relate to. Knowing the news is important but it gets boring when it has nothing to do with you and/or it is constantly thrown in your face. An article about illegal downloading or addiction to the internet would be more relatable to our age group. Some topics can need critical thinking but still be interesting if it relates to our generation. Maybe a topic like how has Hip-Hop/Rap changed since it first began? Is the change positive or negative? Sprinkle in a few boring topics so students do no start to think they are getting the easy stuff. I hope these suggestions help you out next semester.

Where Oh Where

The world is an interesting place. It is hard to pick just one place that one would love to live, especially if you take this question seriously. Most people base their ideas of the perfect place to live on weather and beauty. They forget to add on the resourcefulness of an area. If I could live anywhere on earth, I would probably live in Milan. Milan offers a big city feel with Italian tradition. It is the largest city in Italy and the fifth largest in the European Union. It is also considered a fashion capital. If you like clothes, then this is a place to start. Industry is also fairly big in Milan. This means job opportunities should be available. The city is a little pricey but if I can manage to pay a little more, I would be living a much more seemingly luxurious lifestyle. Monuments from previous time periods like the Duomo will surround me. I have always been a fan of Italian cooking, so eating will be of no problem to me. The only thing I may have trouble with is the snow being that Milan is located at the foot of the Alps. I have never been a big fan of cold weather but I could deal with it if I was living in Milan. A plus side for the weather, however, are the warm Italian springs and summers. The heat is not unbearable like it can be during the spring and summer months in Atlanta, but they are not cool either. Living in Italy would also give me easy access to everything Europe has to offer. Since Milan is in northern Italy. I would be close to France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. If I headed south, I could just take a boat into Africa. If I lived in Italy, I would not have to worry much about currency conversion rates if I were to travel across most of Western Europe because of the Euro. Life in Milan would be filled with excitement and challenges but I would probably end up loving every moment of it.

Barking Hound Village

It is a warm afternoon. Roughly 2 o'clock. The sun's rays play games with my skin. I try to find shade, but I have little luck. There is a small amount of shade near a fence but it is not enough to cover me, but since it is all I can get, I place my chair there any way. About twenty dogs run around me. Their barking is constant. This is an average day at my job at Barking Hound Village. I sit there thinking to myself looking at the Atlanta skyline that surrounds me. There is not much else to do that does not involve me overheating. The dogs play. I hear the splashing sounds they make as they wrestle in the pool. Some of them seem oblivious to the heat as they run around playing their own version of tag. One dog sticks his butt in the air as if to say come and get me. The chase is on. Pebbles go flying and other dogs start barking like the instigators of an upcoming fight. The dogs that seem to be in my same position with the sun find their own shadows to hide in in various spaces of the yard. Some are curled around the legs of my chair and others are trying to claim my lap as their own. More splashing in the background as one dog tries his hardest to get to the water that the others seem to be wrestling in. Another dog tries to claim the other pool running any and every dog that comes near away. When the dog is done protecting its domain, it plops in the water satisfied with its own splash as the water falls back on its body. A man and his dog walk by. Another distraction. The dogs, hot and cold, create a chorus at the passerby. The dogs that are still inside add their own lyrics wishing they were here. I pay them no mind in my little sliver of shade. Once the dog and its male counterpart are gone, the dogs go back to their original activities. The dog is back claiming its own pool, the water wrestling match continues, the dogs who want nothing to do with the heat emanating from the sun go back to their shade, and a new dog tries to take its place in my lap. I love it.

Say it Like You Mean It

The phrase, "I'm sorry," is just as overused as the phrase, "I love you." People just throw it out there without realizing they need detailed support for saying these things. If you do not mean it, then what is the point of saying it? Just like saying, "I love you," saying, "I am sorry," means absolutely nothing if the person who is saying it is not really sorry. The person supposedly accepting this apology can normally tell if the person is sincere or not, just as if someone was to tell them that they loved them. Sometimes truth and deceit are easy to detect. I recently read an article title "Sandy Springs: The lost art of the humble apology," by Jim Osterman from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Like any other journalist these days, his story focuses on Tiger Woods and his apology. Osterman feels like Woods' apology is not sincere. He writes about how a meaningful apology would be a heartfelt, "I'm sorry," followed by a handshake or the deepest look of regret. Nowadays, people just say a simple, "My bad," and move on with their lives. Osterman seems to think that apologies today do not have the same message as they once did. There was a time where someone could tell you they were sorry and truly meant it. The person receiving the apology would know that that person who was giving the apology was never going to do whatever they did again. That concept is not was is behind today's apologies. They are no longer believable. If someone says they are sorry, it is hard to trust them again. People need that same assurance they may have had in the past. Osterman believes that Tiger Woods' apology is not "inclusive" enough. He wants Woods to apologize to the faithful husbands because his actions may have put doubts in the minds of their own wives. Apologies should be encouraged but their should be no major reward if one does apologize. Apologies are expected. One cannot be rewarded for something that is expected by society. According to Osterman, Woods wants a reward that Osterman is unwilling to give. In the end, remember, say it like you mean it.

Don't Make the 'Shine if You Can't do the Time

I guess making moonshine puts a lot on a person, with making sure you do not get caught, avoid the police, making up a cover story, and all the other complicated operations for having an illegal prospering moonshine business. According to the article, "Moonshiner 'Popcorn' Sutton may have committed suicide," making moonshine might have beat him down a little bit. Instead of serving two eighteen month long prison sentences, he may have committed suicide. Was he tired of playing cat and mouse and hide and seek with the law or is he so loyal to his moonshine that he does not want anyone to know the specifics of his lifestyle? Unfortunately, the police are unsure of how he died. They are thinking suicide, but that and other causes have yet to be completely ruled out. Popcorn was a big man in Tennessee. People knew who he was and respected him even if the law was set out to destroy him. According to the comments on the article, people said good things about him. Out of the comments I read, none of them were threatening or disrespectful like comments most people find on articles about criminals. There was no, "I'm glad he is dead," or, "The world is better off," kind of tone to the comments. They were generous and sincere. Popcorn may have been doing something illegal, but somehow he managed to remain a good person in the eyes of those who had no reason to lock him away. Despite his occupation, people were still interested in him. He even had an autobiography written that had not yet been published. Hopefully more news will be put out about his death. Some insight of his life would also be helpful in determining why he may have committed suicide if he did. Even after his death, Popcorn will continue to be cherished in Tennessee.

The Goose Who Lays the Golden Egg

In current times, having sex is no longer the only way to conceive a baby. Thanks to modern science, women can either use their own eggs or someone else's. A real relationship with the baby's father is no longer necessary. If problems occur in a real relationship, like the woman cannot make a baby from her own eggs, she and her partner can always find someone else's. People can also be extremely picky when it comes to where the eggs come from. According to a blog titled "Eggonomics 101" written by William Saletan from Slate, women with higher SAT scores get more money when they sell their eggs. Is intelligence actually in the genetic code? I always thought intelligence depended on the person and what they learn from their surroundings. It is not a hard thing to understand that people what smarter children. Everyone always wants the good stuff no matter what it is, a car, a house, clothes, a new baby. If the eggs' original "mother" is smart, I guess the eggs themselves will be, too. Before reading this article, I thought people who were interested in this process only could choose physical traits, like hair and eye color. Now, it is possible to choose mental attributes as well as long as the genetic lottery works out in their favor. This woman has brown hair and brown eyes and a SAT score of 2350. The eggs go to the highest bidder. Aaron Levine, a professor at Georgia Tech, started to analyze the popularity of smarter eggs. He found that 63 out of more than 100 ads for egg donations had a required minimum SAT score. Ads that offered over $10,000 had appearance and ethnicity requirements. One ad stated that a woman would get a little over $3,000 more for every 100 points she was over the SAT requirement. Nobody wants a rotten egg.

How Important is Your Child?

Most of the time, people see video games as innocent fun, but what happens when the time used to play a video game takes away from the actual time parents could be spending with their own children? I guess two Korean parents thought their virtual baby was a little more important than the real one they would abandon at home on a regular basis. According to a blog post titled "Game over: Baby starves to death while parents play online" written by William Saletan from Slate, a man and a woman from South Korea met online. After the relationship got serious, a real baby came into the world. Unfortunately, the baby girl, who they had not even given a name, was premature and not worthy of their love. Instead of raising their own nameless daughter, they decided to raise a virtual baby on a website called Prius Online, a 3D community where people can find friends, a new job, or have a new baby. Virtual life became more important than reality. The virtual baby was important enough to have a name, Anima. People constantly become addicted to online worlds because they either do not want to face reality or they just cannot pull themselves away from their computer screens. Two of these addicts were the parents of this baby girl. Every day they would leave their baby for extended periods of time in order to take care of Anima in their local Internet cafe. They would return home and feed their own baby powdered milk and then go back into "virtuality." One day they left their baby girl for twelve hours. When they returned, she was dead. According to the autopsy, the little girl died of malnutrition and dehydration. No child should be abandoned like that. Computers and any type of technology are normally fun but in moderate amounts. Nothing should exceed the importance of your own flesh and blood. The baby girl is not the only incident. Two Korean men died from exhaustion and another, sick of his mother nagging him for being in an online world too much, decided to kill her. There is an unseen war going on between the worlds of reality and "virtuality." If I were you, I would take Saletan's advice: "The dead baby is just another casualty of this war between the worlds-- a war increasingly dominated by the world in which you're reading this. So get the hell out of here. Go kiss your spouse, hug your kids, or walk down the hall and say hello to your colleagues. There's a beautiful world out there. Live in it."