Simplify Things and Enjoy the Ride

I just happened to come across an article about a man who, since his marriage had ended, and his kids had gone off to college, wanted to live life a little, and chill out for a while. The result; a 16 foot wagon built at home, and 4 horses to pull it around the country. Apparently, life just got a little bit too crazy for the man, Bob Skelding, so he decided to cut some things out of it. "I got to the point where I could take the things I really don't like, like taxes and bills and a regular job, and shelved them," Skelding said. "(I) took the stuff I like in life, which is travel and meeting people and horses, and I rolled that all into a big pile and made the wagon."
I couldn't help but immediately think of Emerson and Thoreau while i was reading this article. Many of their writings concerned cutting out all the things in life that you don't need or want, and how you will be much happier with a simpler life. While many may not have the option of dropping everything and taking a trip around America just for fun, it just lets people know that there is more to life than hard work and paying taxes. Intrigued to find out what Skelding's view on life was, i went to his website, and found a page he wrote about his philosophy. He listed his ten most important things in life, the first three being, friends, family and the well-being of his fellow man, and the last being money. It's nice to see people recognize that money isn't everything, and that you can still be happy without much of it.

Civil Disobedience In Greece

Because we had been talking about Civil Disobedience in class, i wanted to to find a current example of it and see if it followed Emerson's ideas. While looking through the Chicago Tribune online, i found an article explaining protests and riots going on in Greece. A little over a week ago, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old, was killed in a police shooting incident, which triggered the outrage of thousands. Though the riots/protests began regarding distrust towards the police, it expanded to be a protest of the entire state of Greece. The protests are about the economy being bad, politicians being corrupt, and the general decay of their society. It is hard to know what Emerson would have thought about these riots, for while they are protesting a failure on the part of their leaders, they are also injuring innocent people, causing millions of dollars worth of damage, and not pausing to offer a solution to the problem. I think that Emerson would have disapproved because this is not civil disobedience in the effort of creating a greater good, it is just a display of anger by an unhappy populace. Though the country will undoubtedly rethink how they are operating, i don't think that angry riots are the best way to accomplish anything, peacefull protests should be done instead.

Carlin on Progress

I was really in the mood to watch something funny last night, so i went down to blockbuster and grabbed, a George Carlin DVD. I had never seen any of his stuff before, but i picked it because i remembered that he had died recently, and was intrigued to find out what this comedians work was like.
The DVD was great, but even while Carlin had my crying in my seat i was laughing so hard, he actually had a rather profound message to tell his audience. Like what we've been reading in Emerson and Thoreau, he talked a great deal about our modern society and how in many ways we havn't progressed at all. After talking about how the modern parent "abuses" their child through heavy scheduling, and how really the rights that our government gives us are just privileges, he goes into saying how Americans never question the ways of our society. He said "We don’t question things because everyone is fat and happy. Everyone has a cell phone that’ll make pancakes, so they don’t want to rock the boat. We went for gizmos, toys and gadgets. All we want is to have as many things as the guy across the street". After this i couldn't help but think of Emerson and Thoreau because it touches on many of their ideas. It brings up the danger of material wealth, of conformity, and of the unwavering complacency of many people in dire situations. I think i agree with Carlin here, for i do worry about the material obsessions that our society has on a whole, and i do believe that it really is something that hinders our progress as a community. I think that conformity slows down our ability to progress, because as Carlin says, "nobody wants to rock the boat", and try to change things at all. Different ideas and questions are essential to progress.

Does technology really make our lives better?

While it is no question that technology has progressed an incredible amount over the last century, i think that whether or not that technology has had a positive or negative effect on the "human experience" is more debatable. Myself and all of us in the class were all born into the age of computers, never having to have dealt with the inconvenience of typewriters, or dependent on large reference books for information. While many may look at this and say that the lives of my generation are better and easier because of the technology, i disagree. I think that the use of the new technologies presented leads us to be dependent on them, useless without them, and lead us to more stressful, more isolated lives.
With the availability of the internet as a resource, with its vast databases of information, the information that you want does take less time to find. However, i think that as technology increases the rate at which we get information, the curriculum that we are taught adapts itself to encompass that resource to the fullest. By this i mean that because we can access information more easily, we are expected to know more of it in a shorter period of time. The overall effect is that the computers and the internet speed up our lives as a whole, making them more chaotic, not easier.
Advances like cell phones and ipods also have a detrimental effect on our lives. While i love my ipod, i can't help but notice when i see a group of friends sitting around each other, all listening to their music individually, texting other people on their cell phones. Human interaction is replaced by technology, little screens and small letters.
In general, i think that the way technology has progressed has damaged the way that we interact with each other. Isolation is promoted rather than communication, but while i'm not going to throw my various gadgets and gizmos away, i do recognize their effect on me. It is interesting to look at how our society progresses alongside our technology. I would rather have a society based more on human interaction than high speed information and individually based entertainment.

The Future of Guantanamo Bay

With the election done, and Barack Obama the victor, plans for the next presidency have begun. Seeing as many of us have recently written papers pondering the morality of the prison known as "Gitmo", it is interesting to see how our next president plans to deal with it. While he has been urged by the American Civil Liberties Union to do away with the prison the first day he gets into office, Obama seems to have a more reasonable approach. Instead of just getting rid of it, he has said that his adminitration and himself will close it "as quickly as we can do prudently." While ideally he would like to get rid of it immediately, the reality is that you can't simply close a facility housing 255 known terrorists. Obama has expressed the possibility of trying some of the inmates in federal courts, not the military courts that president Bush had used to try several leading terrorists. A fear of corruption and political interferance with these courts has led to this idea.
Regardless of the means of its closure, it is clear that Obama and his administration plan on closing it, believing its use unneccesary and unconstitutional. While it is often hard to see the good that "Gitmo" has brought the United States, it is easy to notice the stain that it has left on the way that we are seen as a nation. While the Constitution pledges a fair and speedy trial to all, and the banning of "cruel and unusual punishments", Guantanamo bay openly disregards it and claims that as a base in Cuba, it is not under the rule of the Constitution. As in many of the papers that we have written in our class, Obama and his administration have decided that the workings of Guantanamo Bay are immoral and an abuse of power.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/10/obama.transition.guantanamo/index.html

Early Voting: Troubles and Accomplisments

Seeing as we were talking about the good and bad sides to early voting last week, i thought i would look up how the early voting was going in this election. When i did, i was really surprised to find out that even in early voting lines, people have had waits of over 6 hours.
I would not have expected such a turnout to early voting, but i think that this just shows us how necessary it is for the election. Just think about what would happen if all these people waited until the day of the election to vote, while there have been voting problems in the past, this greatly increased interest suggests that the availability of voting time and locations needs to be increased. I'm sure that in having such long lines, many people are either disinclined to vote, or simply can't do it because they have other things to do. Because of this i think that they should either have the polls open for a longer period of time during the day, or just have more polls to go to. Something about the system needs to be changed because it is not capable of supporting this turnout. I know that the rules of the election give the candidates a deadline of election day to prove their point, but think that the availability of early voting is more of a positive effect rather than negative. While few people are likely to change their minds over the course of the last couple weeks, the early voting gives many a chance to vote when otherwise they could not have.
Regardless of the problems with lines and waiting, the turnout for the voting is encouraging. It really appears that people now are far more interested in the outcome of the election and are willing to go out of their way to have their vote counted. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/02/early.voting/index.html

A School Without Teachers or Classes?

After our conversation in class today about the grading system at New Trier and how it is apparently contrary to the mission statement, i was intrigued to find out if there were any schools that had a drastically different approach to education which does help the students become intrinsically motivated to learn. After a quick search, i found an article about New Country School in Henderson, Minnesota that has no classes, no walls, and no teachers. The basic idea of the school is that the students work on projects that are designed to fulfill state requirements for education, but other than a deadline, there is almost no input from teachers. The students will work how they want, some on their own, some in groups, but all with the freedom to do as they will. If they get tired of working on one project, they can switch to math, or reading whenever they want. These projects will eventually be presented to the rest of the school and staff when they are due. According to the article, the students enjoy the relaxed environment, and even though they don't have teachers breathing down their necks to make sure they work, the school performs well above the state average on standardized tests, and 90% of the students go on to college when they are done.
This system would hardly work for New Trier, seeing as New Country has 124 students, and New Trier is closer to 5,000, but it is an interesting approach to education. This way, all the students get to study what they are interested in and want to study, while still meeting state requirements. While New Trier couldn't do this to the same scale, i think that we could definately look at this school and take some of their ideas.