Tuesday, January 11, 2011

1/11/11 Harrison Bergeron Follow Up Q's


Life in Vietnam would be perfect if everyone were totally equal.  Do you agree or disagree?  Explain your answer in complete sentences.
I totally disagree to the idea of ‘life in Vietnam would e perfect if everyone were totally equal.’ Why?
First of all, people will not change until they are force to or they needed it. This whole idea will not force anyone to change. This will be a complete chaos. Like in the story, ‘Harrison Bergeron,’ himself had broken the law, and stood out to stand for himself. Base on the fact to real-life, people would never give up the power to be equal to others, people had different needs.
Secondly, if Vietnam is perfect by making everyone equal, then we should be our own clone, one hairstyle, bald; one brand, one color clothes, black or white; one type of personality, and many more.

You are designing a society in which everyone is equal. What are the laws?
None, because if you make those laws, then it would make you more powerful then the citizens. That is not calling an equal perfection community. [except for one, you have limited freedom for things]

What would you do to help people who were less capable mentally, physically, or socially to “catch up”?
1.      If people are smarter, create a machine to delete some information.
2.      If people are less intelligence, create fun that will suit them for a better knowledge.

What problems can you foresee that might come in a society with laws that force “equality for all”? How would you handle those problems?
People would actually break the regulations and have the freedom back, even if they are poor. For a simple solution, I would let the people vote for the equity or the equality.

Do you believe that total equality is possible, or would human nature make sure that some people would eventually dominate others?
I believe this belief won’t even exist in my mind. People will make chaos, lost their own talents to make success in their own ways, and having less what they need. I can’t find a benefit from everyone being equals. The quote, ‘Life is unfair, get use to it,’ is adapted to everyone in the world, I am pretty sure.

In what situations have you felt similarly to any of the characters? What persons, places, or ideas from your own experience came to mind while you were reading this story? Try to list as least two examples.
The person that I felt that they came to my mind so quick is the father, George, the ballerina that wears the most hideous mask, and the H-G men.
George was able to access to the knowledge, but was block because of the laws. You can think of something then forget just because of a sound. I have the same problems, I have a little ear problems since I was an infant, so I easily forget things.
About the ballerina, she had the talents of dancing, but she was force to wears the mask and dance boringly. Just like real-life people can’t get a chance to express themselves, the talents they got. I am talking about the poor people, even though there are different real-life shows for them. That still doesn’t help much. People won’t get the information easily as we thought.
To conclude this, the H-G men was controlling the whole community, would that be fair, taking others privacy. That is our equity, isn’t it?

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Economy Essay Version 2


Emily Lam
Mr. Stok/ Mr. Sullivan
Period 1/ Period 6
December 13, 2010

How Efficient A Mixed Economy Work

More than half of the populations will think that a command economy is like living in the Dark Ages again, and you are probably one of them. Talking about economy, people would come up with the idea of money. There are four types of economies. A mixed economy is the combination of command economy and free market. Mixed economies that are leaning towards command economies of developed countries are more efficient for citizens by giving people employment opportunities and the freedom of ownership while maintaining order.
First of all, the country employs many people in this type of economy. They give people jobs, so the citizens would not fall in poverty and famine. To not cause this problem, the Chinese leaders in the Cultural Revolution decided that women and men needed to be treated equally. Therefore, women can do any job as well as men, like farming or factory industrials (World Culture and Geography 768). When people have jobs, they would have money, or the green gold, to buy their needs and supplies. Therefore, the government would gain more trust. Because of poverty and famine’s big problems, beggars and poor people will starve and die. If a country had poverty for many years, the citizens might see that there would be no ways the government could provide jobs and food for everyone. The natives would migrate to other places causing the country to collapse.
In command economies, government will own every single possession of the individuals, but on the other hand, mixed economies let the individuals have the ownership under government’s regulations. For example, in 1976, after Mao died, Deng Xiaoping became the president. He found out that money equals power, let the foreigners into China and make money with them, while maintaining government’s regulations (Deng Xiaoping’s Wikipedia’s Page). The thought of raising its own country’s economy status worked. The plan was anyone can own companies and properties, but they must help the government grow stronger. With the introduction of private ownership of property and Dang’s quote, “I don’t care if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice,” hundreds of millions became richer. The four modernizations like agriculture, industry, science, and defense, were the impressive improvement. This period of industrial was a big and powerful sign of China’s success. It was worth it to change. After this period, he was marked in the history for this event, the beginning of China’s economy of moving to free market on the spectrum. The more profit those companies earn, the wealthier they are, which means the economy will rise rapidly. That will help to develop the country
Thirdly, developed countries are countries that had been improve with an economic system. Ancient Japan is one example of mixed economies closer to command. The strong young lord had causing the natives with challenging problems. If not, the lord would get angry and punish those innocent poor citizens harshly (Literature Text Book 8, The Wise Old Woman, by Yoshiko Uchida). Let’s look at the present Japan, peaceful and calm place to settle down with the help of the government. The Japanese government used their old mistakes to fix the currents problems. Japan became a developed country with a mixed leaning toward command economy. Also, citizens there have very high living standards, with gigantic great inventions. With this kind of economy, Japan can develop more and more with the same procedure while maintaining order for the citizens.
In mixed economies that are leaning towards command, the reduction of violence and keeping people to maintain order is very important. China is writing the eleventh five-years program for 2011 to 2015; the goal is to  reduce of energy consumption intensity and carbon dioxide emissions intensity (People’s Daily Online English, Significant Reductions In Carbon Emissions likely to Be Binding in New Five-Year Program: NDRC Official, November 11th, 2010). In the last five-year program, the successful construction was ‘The Three Gorges Dam,’ the government had called the citizens to move in 1994, and they did as quickly as possible. The plan was successful, supporting energy to 1.3 billion people in this second largest country, while destroying somehow. To support energy for the citizens was worth it. The swipe of old cultural places, like temples and attracted tourist place was no regret. They started because they had calculated every possible consequence, and the government knows that these will be memorable to every citizen of China’s heart, and their descendents. It was nothing bad, the country did participate with the others for the cause of Global Warming or Climate Chaos.
Somehow, a developed country needed some regulations to maintain order by giving their own citizens employment opportunities and still keeping their freedoms of ownership. People think that they can survive on their own, well not exactly. If there were no government, would you have a great income and healthy life? The answer is no, your boss would torture you under no regulations of the government, and would people starve. Another example, if the crops fail this year, who would give you food? That’s right, the government. They will help you under any circumstances.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Our Bears - Official Music Video - SS Bears Project

Sorry for uploading late Mr. Blake, it's just show error everytime, now I embed it, it is much better.

Visite: www.forourbears.webs.com

By. Jennifer, Jack, Mary & Emily SS8P1


Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Homework 11/02/2010


How does advertising influence consumption?
Advertising is made by advertiser that used all the advertising techniques, like using modeling, cool images, and celebrity involves, to make us, the costumers buy or influence it. By showing us all the good side of the product not thinking or demonstrating the impact from each part of the product. For example, if they are using celebrity involvement in an advert, we would think that we really need to buy this, so we can look like the celebrity or look cool like them. Actually not.

Do you think citizens are sufficiently informed about the sustainability of our consumption habits? If not, how can we become more informed about sustainability issues?
For this question, I think that the citizens are not sufficiently informed or impact about the sustainability of our purchasing habits. Why? Because all of the advertisements every day we are seeing making us want to buy more and more which are not necessary. How?Government wouldn't stop the companies to sell more things and make more money so they collects the taxes. This is the government decision, they could make a form and make the seller to fill out, what are their products do, how they are use, is is sustainable, something like those. By this idea, they can still collect the taxes and make companies to give out better and more sustainable things. To change to that big decision, first we need to change our way of purchasing things. Purchase things that are necessary.

Do you think these advertising techniques influence what you and your friends purchase?
Yes, I think so, for celebrity involvement, on the top I had already explained, but just simply like eating a kid meal, it would always include with a toy or some promotion that the kid will use. Well, from that we could see the children just wanted the toy more than the food. In there head, they would think: “Well yeah, let’s eat this and I will get the superman toy. Awesome, the food is okay…” They won’t really eat it, the main purpose is just getting the toy.
The thing is that advertisements are things that makes us to DO something without knowing the bad side of it.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Sustainability Development - Blog Post #9

1. Define:
The balance between the human needs of lifestyles and well-beings for now and preserving natural resource and ecosystem later on. [Today & Tomorrow]

2. Examples:
     a. Deforestation of native rain forest in Rio de Tanerio City for extraction of clay for civil engineering (2009)
     b. Solar towers instead of soil and electricity
     c. The Three Gorges Dams in  China (1994-2009) trading lands and energy for the heavy population
     d. The wind and solar power street lights in the 23/9 park near the Ben Thanh market
     e. Cars engine using cooking oil in the U.S. to stop producing CO2