Draconian Recycling

The year is 2013 and recycling is still a problem. People are simply not doing it. The main reason why people aren’t recycling is due to inconvenience. For some people it is just too much work to separate their garbage into recyclables. For others it is a bit more complicated than that. Some towns do not have a curbside recycling program. Instead of their community coming to pick their bin up, they must do it themselves. Another reason why people aren’t recycling is simply because they are just not educated in the matter. 

According to treehugger.com, “Among the anti-recyclers, one in six said they don't recycle because it wasn't available in their area; 12 percent, on the other hand, said it takes too much effort, plus it costs more to recycle in their neighborhoods. Another 11 percent said recycling was, well, rubbish and doesn't make a difference; 6 percent said they were too busy and 5 percent found recycling too difficult.” These numbers are astonishing. Recycling absolutely does make a difference. Everyday in Bridgewater State University I witness people throwing away plastic bottles into the trash bins. What’s even worse is that BSU has numerous recycling stations all over campus. I was talking to a friend of mine and she mentioned that her family does not recycle at all. Our town has a curbside recycling program. The only effort that is necessary is a simple separation and assortment of recyclables. When we don’t recycle, more likely than not, the plastic and recyclable materials end up in a mountainous landfills to remain forever. 

I suggest that recycling be made a law. In order to enforce this law fines and punishments would be installed. The fines would be hefty and if the fines went unpaid, jail time would be the penalty. It may seem a bit Draconian, but when it comes to the environment, this is a very serious matter. As another part of the law and in order to aid the people in this “tedious” deed, towns and cities alike must make recycling a free service. This should eliminate the pitiful excuse of inconvenience.

There are bountiful benefits to recycling. For one it is good for the economy. According to epa.gov it creates more jobs, economic development, and tax revenue. It is also good for the environment. Epa.gov says that recycling causes more energy security, less greenhouse gas emissions, less pressure on landfills and more natural resources for future generations. 

If we are to truly conserve our earth for future generations, recycling must be made a priority. It is only fair that we do this small and simple task to ensure a clean environment for everyone.

Causes of Violent Video Games

       Virtual gaming platforms have been around since the fifties. It is only recently that they have been designed to be more realistic and they have been gradually increasing in the level of violence. Violent games are more popular than ever. Some of the more popular games include Halo, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Battlefield, Pay Day, Far Cry, and Left for Dead. All of these games are rated MA for mature and are intended on for mature audiences due to the content. They mainly contain elements like blood and gore, intense violence, mature humor, nudity, strong language, strong sexual content, and use of drugs and alcohol. The Call of Duty franchise are video games that are first-person shooters. This means that the player takes on the roll of the shooter as if they are the one holding the weapon. These games have military-style action with plenty of blood and gore. 

Video games are becoming increasingly more violent. Sixty-eight percent of play computer or video games. A list from a game industry tracker VGChartz.com says that among the best selling games of the year, 4 of the top 5, and 6 in the top 10, contain violence. “If you counted the number of games and looked at the ratings, most are video games on the market are non-violent. But in terms of top selling, 70 to 90 percent are violent ones,” says Brad Bushman,” a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University and one of the country’s leading experts on violence.

The cause of this increase is disputed but most seem to point to one reason, however. Companies are trying to do the next big thing. They have to keep their audiences entertained and anticipating the next, so they continue to raise the bar. “Video games are like roller coasters. They make them more and more thrilling in order to keep people coming back. You can’t have the same things being done, or no one will put their money into it,” said Cheryl Lockett a clinical social worker at the Key Program in Fall River. 

It’s a fact that video games are becoming more and more violent and it has to do with the consumers. Companies are targeting their buyers and they know how to market to them. “I think [this] has to do with the number of people and the people [who] are playing video games,” says Bushman.

Movie Review: PROMETHEUS

Prometheus is the chilling prequel to the science fiction horror film Alien created by director Ridley Scott. The movie contains an all-star cast including Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green, and Charlize Theron. The project was shot entirely with 3-D cameras. The use of brilliant special effects and noteworthy acting are what make Prometheus an exemplary film. 

The film opens with a human-like alien drinking some sort of liquid on a foreign planet that causes his body to deteriorate. The next scene shows a group of scientists who are doing research in mountain tops and caves. Doctor Elizabeth Shaw and her boyfriend, and fellow archeologist, Charlie Holloway discover a star map that starts them on a journey to a distant moon LV-223. The expensive exoplanet expedition aboard the scientific space ship Prometheus is funded by the deceased CEO of Weyland Corporation, Peter Weyland. Their task, along with the crew of the ship, including an emotionless android named David, is to gather evidence of the human race’s makers called engineers. What starts off as a simple, peaceful mission quickly escalates into full blown chaos which no one aboard could have ever predicted.

Breathtaking and at times horrifying visual effects are used throughout Prometheus. The effects in the movie are quite stunning. The whole movie gives you a sort of pristine clean futuristic feel. The spaceship is beautifully crafted along with all of the gear and vehicles during the course of the movie. It gave me a craving of a similar future for us. When members of the crew are attacked by the alien creatures of the planet, you really get the feeling of a horrible death. The monsters are so visually mastered that you cringe in your seat at the thought of one of the things touching you, never mind the helpless scientists.

The makers of this film could not have picked a better cast. Noomi Rapace captures the typical damsel in distress to a T. She makes it so that the audience cares just enough to feel bad for her without despising her character. However, the real award goes to Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender. Theron plays Meredith Vickers, a Weyland Corporation employee, who acts as a supervisor on the trip. Scary is not an adequate word to describe her role in this movie. She is intimidating and definitley captures the whole pawn in a bigger picture with her own ill placed agenda. Michael Fassbender is fantastic as David the android who supposedly has no emotions. The lack of his character's emotion is what makes him so frightening. 

Habitable planets: Gliese 581 g?

If there ever came a time when Earth was no longer available for habitation, it’s great to know that NASA’s got our backs. The planet Gliese 581 g is the closest match to Earth that NASA has discovered. This planet would be very convenient in any apocalyptic situation, but is it just out of reach?

Gliese 581 g is an exoplanet. An exoplanet, or an extrasolar planet, is a planet outside of our solar system. Gliese 581 g is one of six planets orbiting the star Gliese 581. The star is in the Libra constellation of the Milky Way galaxy and is considered to be in the red dwarf stage. The star is significantly smaller than our sun. It weighs in at about one third of the mass of our sun. A star goes through several stages of life, in order starting with the red giant, red dwarf, white dwarf, then the supernova stage. The supernova is the explosive death of a star. 

A potentially habitable planet means that the planet may be able to sustain life. This does not mean that the planet is suitable for the successful existence of human life, however. An atmosphere and liquid water are not just the only components that make a planet livable. 

Over the course of eleven years, scientists at NASA have been observing the nearby star with advanced technology. The Keck I Telescope uses the HIRES spectrometer to  measure a star’s radial velocity. This means that it measure its motion along the line of sight from Earth which helps to show the presence of planets. According to Mario R. Perez, a scientist at NASA Headquarters, “Keck is once again proving itself an amazing tool for scientific research.” He also says that, “Keck's long-term observations of the wobble of nearby stars enabled the detection of this multi-planetary system.”

Finding Gliese 581 has made scientists conclude that, “The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common,” says says Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics He also mentions that “[their] findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet.” Gliese is significantly larger than earth, three to four times larger, to be exact. The planet orbits Gliese 581 in thirty-seven days. Its terrain is most likely rocky, but definitely contains a surface with a strong enough gravitational pull to sustain an atmosphere.

Even with all of these findings Gliese 581 g has not been properly discovered. The planet is located at around twenty light years away. The technology is just not there for NASA to get there, never mind to properly explore it. The planets existence has not even been confirmed. 

Rhetorical Analysis

Let it Snow, by David Sedaris is a humorous yet serious story about children trying to gain the attention of their mother. The author writes comedically about a darker subject that shows how different and complex a family relationship can be.

The story begins with a group of children who are shooed out of their home by their mother because she is annoyed of them being in the house. Due to snow they have had almost a week off school. When they are done playing and return home, much to their dismay, their mother has locked them outside and is ignoring them. In return the children come up with a crazy scheme to get the attention of their neglectful mother.

This dark comedy is shown when the children return home and are trying to get back in the house. The children are no older than elementary school age and are outside in the middle of winter. When they try to get back in, they see their mother ignoring them and she even goes to refill her alcoholic beverage. The humorous part is how the children attempt to grab their mother’s attention by throwing snowballs at the window and how one child even curses at their mother behind her back.

This is also shown when the children go to even greater lengths to get some sort of acknowledgment from their mother. They discuss a scheme where they plan to lay in the middle of a road in order to get hit by a car. The kids think that they are going to teach their parents a lesson this way. They chose the youngest of the group, a six year old to carry out the plan. They chose her because she demonstrates little to no concept of death or danger, but the children are desperate and will do anything to get what they desire. When their mother eventually comes outside not properly dressed for the cold and disheveled, the children quickly crop any malcontent held for her. When she loses her shoe in the snow the children even help her look for it. One child takers her hat off and another takers her scarf off to make a makeshift footwear for their mother because they pitied her. 

This story is written humorously almost to lighten the dark mood of the work as a whole. This makes it a complex piece with a deep underlying message that is conveyed in an entertaining way.

Literacy Narrative

       Tenth grade was my first negative experience with writing that has made me doubt my abilities as a writer to this day. I kept getting terrible grades on papers and combined with the negative feedback from my teacher made me feel hopeless. I wanted to write well but I felt as though I didn’t have the proper skills to get there.

I vividly remember my tenth grade teacher. Everyone loved her for her sarcastic personality and joke-telling abilities. I, however, knew her as the teacher who loved to pick favorites, and I was not one of the select few. I dreaded every assignment that came my way. I felt I was expected to know how to write a certain way that I was never taught. Every single paper that I was returned received a fifty or lower. The papers were normally all marked up with red ink and comments that made me feel poorly about my writing. I thought I was doing well but got shot down each time. It made me not even want to try to write because I was set up to fail. I definitely wasn’t writing to my full potential because I didn’t think I could get any higher of a grade.

The previous year, in ninth grade, my teacher quit within the first month of the school year. This left my class without a teacher, so we were given a long-term substitute who was dragged out of his retirement condo in Florida, I’m certain. We read some ridiculous story that was written in the eighteen-hundreds. It was the type of book that you might find fallen behind your bookcase all covered in dust. We answered some questions about it and that was that. After that sub finally left, we were given a real teacher. She was really nice and we read some interesting stories. However, there was no learning how to form a thesis. There was no learning how to construct an analytical essay. There was just poem writing. I felt very unprepared for what awaited me in the tenth grade. I didn’t have any basis of what I was doing and my tenth grade teacher was very unapproachable.

High school was a pivotal point in what shaped me as a writer today. My mom always tells me that I am a good writer and it’s just me doubting myself that’s standing in my way. I still can never find much motivation to write to my full potential because I feel that it will not be good enough. I can’t get past the feeling and my experiences will always be in the back of my mind.

"Lavish Worlds, and the Headwear to Match" Review

In the article, “Lavish Worlds, and the Headwear to Match,” the author, Jon Pareles, used rhetoric to appeal to an audience who was interested in popular music and everything Lady Gaga. The author writes enthusiastically about Lady Gaga, as though he himself was very interested in the topic. Jon Pareles also wrote to give information, on what to expect from the rising pop star, to the audience in a creative and quirky way.

The author’s voice and word choice had a lot to do with the type of audience he wrote for. Right off the back, in the first sentence, the author used very descriptive, put-a-picture-in-your-mind types of words. He mentions how, “When Lady Gaga finished her thumping, strobing, razzle-dazzle song-and-dance numbers at Radio Music Hall on Wednesday night, she held her pose and kept the stage lights on, delighting her many camera-wielding fans.” The author also quoted Lady Gaga freely, never sugarcoating or censoring her colorful words. He did this when he quoted Lady Gaga saying, “I’m a free bitch,” and also when Lady Gaga explained how her fans were “sexy.”

Jon Pareles also gave insight on what to expect from a typical Lady Gaga concert. He explains how, “Her opening acts reflected her two main source genres: R&B from Jason Derülo and glam-rock from Semi Precious Weapons. Lady Gaga’s songs are solid, most often pumped up by hefty Eurodisco beats.” The author also gave a taste of how the pop star sounds to him. He appraises her and states that, “While showpeople like David Bowie and Madonna established this career path, Lady Gaga is strutting along it with larger-than-life style and, behind that, actual musical gifts. Her voice is strong enough to expose in a cappella singing, and she backed herself up with her own piano playing, sounding like a female Elton John when she played (and belted) “Speechless,” wearing a huge black-feather shawl.” The author also gave detailed descriptions of what Lady Gaga wore, “Onstage and in photos on video screens, she wore Egyptian-deity golden armor, antlers, a shiny red chauffeur’s hat, a spiked black hood and an exoskeletonlike helmet, not to mention bondage-style rings connecting her head to a bar held up by two men.” In order to understand what the author is talking about with mentioning all of these artists that he compares Lady Gaga to, he must assume that the reader has some sort of background knowldege.

There is no doubt of who the audience with the details and care that the author has enlaced throughout the article. The article is clearly written for Lady Gaga fanatics and pop music enthusiasts encluding Jon Pareles, himself.

A Very Short Introduction

I am the type of person who will jump at opportunities to do new things. I look at the world with an open mind. Adventure intrigues me. Travel motivates me. Nature moves me. My name is Olivia Emmiline Lockett and the earth is my canvas. 

I may seem shy at first, but to my closest friends and family I am extremely outgoing. I like to have fun and try new things. Traveling is my favorite hobby. I love learning about new cultures and ancient histories. On average my family and I travel out of the United States every other year. I have been to Europe three separate times and to five different countries. That is not even half of the amount of countries that are on my to-do list. I am majoring in Spanish and hope to do multiple semesters abroad in Spain. 

Other than basically being a secret agent, I do have some normal hobbies. I have been snowboarding for several years now and I absolutely love it. I love the speed and the brisk air that comes with plummeting down an icy mountain on a plank of wood. When off-season comes around I turn my attention to the water. Although I learned to sail only a year ago it was one of the best experiences I ever had. It took a while to learn all the knots, points of sail and how to rig the boat but it was well worth the time.

When I’m not on the slopes or the sea I am most likely in my room. I love television, movies and video games. (I am such a nerd.) My sister thinks that I am a cinephile because whenever she can’t think of an actor or actresses name I am always there to help her out. With TV, movies and video games comes fan art and tons of it. I have always had a talent for drawing and I love anything to do with art and fashion--so much so that sometimes I wish I could dress people. I get most of my ideas from the internet or nature but taking trips to museums every now and then is very enjoyable.

I am somewhat of a picky eater. My favorite foods are butternut squash and anything that has to do with sweet potatoes. Being lactose intolerant and trying to become vegan means that there aren’t many foods that I actually can eat. Tree hugging is basically my side job. I love animals, including my cat Lilly, and the earth. As a Roman Catholic I believe God loves everyone and everything and that everyone should follow the same principles.

I hope to learn as much as I can from being in college and from the earth itself. I love my family, God and my friends and I love to do what makes me happy.