"The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief. And by dangerous, I don't mean thought provoking. I mean people might get killed.
-Sarah Vowell


I agree with this quote because having a belief is what we live for and we fell really strongly about it but an idea is a thought. An idea may not turn into killing because we will not feel as strongly about it but if we think that killing is the right path than it will be more likely to turn into that.

Journal #45

" 'The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering it's prison" - Fyodor Dostoevsky'

I agree and disagree with this statement.  I think that the degree of civilization should also be dependent on how many people are imprisoned.  Sure the way convicted felons are treated makes a difference in which countries are more humane, but ultimately what matters in a "civilized" perspective is how many people are incarcerated and how effective the system is at rehabilitating them to be citizens of society.  The most uncivilized countries are the most lackadaisical by throwing people in jail and leaving them in a cycle that only throws them back in jail."

"If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstances. ~Theodore Dreiser, 1941

Pick one quote about religion. Respond to the quote in depth(agree, disagree, connection...)

I think that this quote means that the blood is like our difference and the bandage is covering up our differences and it gives us a sign that we could feel like we are safe. Just like with religion, we could all be different, but religion gives us something to fall back on.
I also think that the bandage represents healing because if we do something wrong we could go to religion because it gives us something to believe in even if we feel hopeless. religion is something that could give us a meaning in life.

History Journal #29:

"The Somebodies"

Those who dream of navigation without maps. Those who wish to be like bees. The somebodies that begin their name with a bumble. Everyone dreams of having the sixth sense they possess, but these hopefuls aren't even using all of their 5. They can try and try, forgetting to bring maps. But they'll always end up lost in the end. Perishing, waking up each day like the last, aspiring to be like THEM. The somebodies are falling in numbers. Owners of infinite knowledge. The somebodies; those with everything, seeming like nothing, but still something.
    No way ---> someway.
    No return ---> some paths.
    No hope ---> some to spare.
    No maps ---> no problems.
The somebodies, the Bess, like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", knowing always of where they'll land.

Which is more powerful, violence or nonviolence?

     In my opinion, violence is more powerful in certain situations. For example, if a cop is after a criminal, the cop would use violence to stop him. Nonviolence is more powerful when it's mentally, unlike violence where it involves physically.

INTRODUCTION:

Every community has there own language, their are certain words that originate in a place and are forgien to others no matter how close the place my be geographically. I feel like you aren't raised to speak a certain language, you grow into it, You speech and term evolve as you grow older, meet new people, and surrond yourself in new places.

ESSAY:

If I were to move to Boston right now, about a year from now I’d catch myself saying things like Pahhk, and Caaahh instead of pronouncing the “AR” and “ARK” of the words. A person’s surrondings, can play an enormous part in the way someone speaks, where they come from, how they live their life and just there everyday surroundings. I find myself altering the way I speak in several different situations. I’m proud of who I am, and where I come from, but I realize that if I use my regular tone of voice, and use some of the words that I’m use to using with my friends and close family, there is no doubt in my mind that I would be judged.
In 8th grade I had to shadow at a wide variety of schools in several different parts of the city, one of the schools I visited was, Spring Side School for girls, located in Chestnut Hill, a very suburban area, the school itself sits upon 62 acres of land. Riding up to the school on the day of my shadow I saw that the homes surrounding the school were beautifully built, each of them had huge yards and at least two cars sitting in the driveway. There were country clubs, and community and rec centers that actually looked clean and safe to be in. When we got there my mom pulled into the congested parking lot, not only did it seem like every student was old enough to drive, but they had their own cars, but they weren’t the typical “starter” cars a lot of high schoolers receive when they first get their license, these were top of the line mercede benz and range rovers sitting in the lot. I already didn’t like my visit, when we got into the school and I actually started my day, I got a better feel for the school. I saw that the school was very diverse when you’re judging from a mile away, but when you’re up close and person you see that every kid was just about the same. Yes, there were African Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics, Asians, and Russian, but the way they spoke was all the same. Each of them tended to drag out there words, a lot of them talked like they were asking a question instead of stating a fact, and just about everysingle one of them used atleast 6 acronyms in their sentences. I remember a conversation I had with my shadow host, Stephanie, she asked how I was enjoying my visit, and of course I couldn’t express to her how uncomfortable I felt, so I lied, smile on my face turning to her and saying,

“I love it, this school is perfect. What made you pick this school over every other one out there?”
“Well, honestly, I.D.E.K [I don’t even know], Liiikkeee, I live in SouthWest so I went to West Philadelphia high school for half of my freshmen year. Then I transferred here, I mean my mom said she was looking for a new school for me to go to but that was, A.F.A.I.K. [as far as I knew]  Then one day my advisor at West was all like, Steph you’re pretty intelli. I think you should totally apply to SSCHA [SpringSide & Chestnut Hill Academy], and at first I was all like HTP[hold the phone], no an all girls school, you’ve obviously LYM [lost your mind]. But then they told me to be opened mind and atleast check the school out, and so I did. I shadowed, loooveeedd it, BTW [by the way] I applied and got here on partial scholarship, and now that i’m here OMG[oh my gosh], I CSTP[Can’t Stand this place] ! L.O.L [Laugh out loud], J/K[Just Kidding]. I love it here, FWIW[For what its worth]”

I remember thinking to myself, how the hell was this girl from Southwest talking like that? I use to go to school in little Charter School in West Philly, my classmates in middle school were generally from the West and SouthWest Philadelphia area. They used terms like, “jawn” and “cuz” and they often cut their words to make them shorter and easier to say in sentences. So, instead of saying ‘might as well’ they might use a term like “mineswell.” The way my shadow host spoke was far from that. She pronounced all of her syllables and she tended to drag out her words instead of shorten them like the kids from the Southwest neighborhood tended to do. It was intriguing to me how someone who came from a part of the city I knew so well, spoke so similarly to a group of people that lived miles away in a completely different part.  Even though I couldn’t really understand all of what she was saying, I just shook my head, nodded and said,

“OMG cool, I love it here too”

Looking back onto that day, I realize that the way she spoke at SpringSide school had nothing to do with where she came from, it had everything to do with where she was currently. After being at SpringSide School for awhile, the way everyone else spoke around her rubbed off on her, she adapted to their speech just like she adapted to her new advisor, or her classmates, or the rules and regulations of the school. Everyone else spoke like that so she had to blend in with her surroundings. She transferred halfway through 9th grade, so not only was she the new kid which is already scary enough, she was also different from the others. I see that a lot here at my own school. Although my school is a pretty diverse place racially, when you’re up close and personal and actually surrounded by all of us, we’re actually the same when it comes to dialect. We all speak the same language,  if I were to go up to someone outside of the SLA, and said something like, “Pause. You’re such a weenie, you better chill and start working on that benchmark before Reddy hits you with fladdaapp.” or if I go to people outside the SLA community and instead of saying “True” when they something that I agree with I say “True Black” people will look at me different like I’m the weird one. A majority of people at this school, know what the fladdaapp is, everyone knows what a benchmark is, everyone knows what it means to be called a weenie, everyone knows the saying “that’s dead.” and everyone knows the meaning behind saying “Trueee Black” instead of plain old “Trueee.”

I feel like no matter how racially diverse a place can get, at the end of the day they all will evolve to using the same dialect. People at my school come from all over, bringing with them, several new customs, and ways of expressing themselves. When we all come together and try to communicate, new dialect is formed, that along with the shared experiences we have from being with each other everyday create a unique language that only people inside our community would understand. Newcomers to these communities must learn to adapt to the language that is already set in place. That’s how Stephanie felt at springside, thats similar to how I felt as a freshmen at SLA and I can assume thats how a person that moves to a different part of town or even a different state feel and I think that just comes naturally.

​Monologue #1: Teenage highschool student.
Finally after all these years of searching and searching for oil on american lands, we found it.
This could be the greatest discovery, or it could be the worst.
There’s many things this could bring to our country.
Both positive and negative.
American jobs, american oil, and american money
It all sounds so sweet and wonderful.
But then you have to think about all of the risks.
What if, the pipeline has a leak
What if, it covers the entire east coast in a greasy slime killing all of our plant life and animals
What if, there's an oil spill worse than the gulf of mexico.
What if, the giant lakes of waste leak into our drinking water. What if.
In some aspects I can understand why people think it’s such a good idea, and in others I am totally against everything they stand for.
The whole american land, american money part i'm totally down for.
But the environmental damage that it's going to cause i'm not too excited about.
Ninety percent of the water used for this pipeline is going to turn into toxic sludge that is going to be stored in giant ponds around the country potentially damaging our drinking water.
So before you go and encourage this pipeline, think about the harm that it could do to our environment first.


Monologue #2 The ocean
I’m so scared, I don’t know how to feel. They say this pipeline is gonna be a good thing, but how can I trust any pipeline after what happened down the gulf of mexico a year or two ago. That spill caused me to lose tons of my children, and to think that this could possibly happen again if this pipeline is put in completely and utterly terrifies me. I mean they say that it’s safe and with all the money they’re putting into it there’s no possible way that it could even leak, crack, or break for at least a century. But when your children are at risk you have to be especially cautious.

Monologue #3 Man living in the territory of the pipeline
Hello all. My name is John Damien and I live in Lincoln Nebraska. I’ve lived here for all 48 years of my life. I have a wife, two young daughters, and a baby boy on the way. Just last week I received a letter in the mail stating that my family and I have 6 months to evacuate from our land. Said they’re buildin’ some type of pipeline that transport oils all the way from Canada down to Texas. What I care bout some stupid pipeline? This is my home, my land, my life. From the brief bit of research i've done on the pipeline it seems quite harmful to the environment. God I beg you to please not let the president pass this and potentially harm my life, job, and kids childhood.


Click here-----> https://vimeo.com/52085447 https://vimeo.com/52085447re.

Appendix: 

-Create lots of american jobs. Around 600 thousand. (Fox News Keystone Pipeline)

-Help part ways from the dangerous middle east (fox news keystone pipeline)

-It’s clean. Better than importing dirty, expensive crude. (fox news keystone pipeline)

-Better for the environment because we don’t have to transport all that oil from the middle east and cause all the air pollution from the planes. (mixture of different websites)

-Tailing will ruin the water ponds (dirtyoilsand.org)

-“The people downstream from the toxic tailing ponds have high rates of rare cancers, renal failure, lupus, and hyperthyroidism” (KeystoneXL new york times)

-90 percent of the water used will turn into toxic waste and not be able to used again (foe.org)

-The destruction of the land is going to threaten the caribou and destroy forest (dirtyoilsand.org)



Bibliography:

- http://www.nrdc.org/energy/keystone-pipeline/?gclid=COmMnrX2mbMCFYZM4AodqnIAfg

- http://www.transcanada.com/keystone.html

-  http://www.foe.org/projects/climate-and-energy/tar-sands/keystone-xl-pipeline

- http://greenliving.about.com/od/scienceandtechnology/a/Keystone-Pipeline.htm

- http://greenliving.about.com/od/scienceandtechnology/a/Keystone-Pipeline.htm

- http://www.tarsandsaction.org/?gclid=COWcn_mEmrMCFQZnOgodg3QAug