Cultural Opp#3

FOr my third culural opp I watched fear and loathing in las vegas. It was a pretty intense movie that sort of was fun to watch and stuff. One of the songs for a band I liked was kindof about that movie/boook. It s called Bat Country by Avenged Sevenfold, I think that it was a p retty decent. That movie was kinda trippy. It wasn't like real horrible, but it wasn't like amazing. It was just kind of two people driving around in a ca r. I was kinda wierded out about it. It was like one big trip the whole movie. Someone is alwqays trippin on some kinda drug during the whole movie, and basically the peoplem do stpid shit when their trippping. Like it was actually kina comical in the effect that all they do is compkltelely stupid stuff when their under the influence of the drug. SO there really wasnt much to the movie, i didnt like the plotline too much. It was just kinda there you know.

Cultural Opp #2

Hi! for my 2nd cultural op I went to see a play/musical at the Universtiy of Illinois in Chanpmaign Urbaba. The play/musical was called My Fair Lady. My sister was on the crew for the play. I dont really know exactly what it was she did though. I think she was eitheer the assisatant director, or the direcrctor. The play had a lot of things in it that I thought were kinda funny. I dont really understand what was happening. I mean to say that I really didnt understand the topics. I did nt really string together the seemenligy unrealted scattered events on a string to make a plot. I think that was my main problem with the people. ALl the singing was kind of wired though. I wish there were only of couple songs in the play, and the people sign really high. I dont know I see that it can take talent to do but I dodnt really enjoy that type of music. SO the play was kind of boring and I didn't like it too much. I mostly went just to see my sister and stuff but then I remebered it would count as a cultural opp so i felt like I had an actual reason to go. IT was still boring From what I understand it was about A girl woh cant speak well so some guys teaches how to speak they fall in love,,,, play over.. I didnt pick up on the minor point I think someone had an affair somewhere, but im not sure. I dont know I didnt really super enjoy the play but I didnt hate it... It just bored me for a little bit but idk it wasn't that bad. I was just bored most of the time with nothing at all to do, but sit there and listen to the play, it was just killing my mind, the play lasted around 2 and a half hours and had an intermission for around 30 minutes, it was just kinda boring.

legal

O.k. so this is the last blog and I HAVE to talk about something. Legalzation or decriminilaztion of cannabis (marijuana). O.k. so let's start with some basic facts about the plant. The cnnabis plant has over 1,000 uses from making rope to helping to relieve migraine headaches. And let's face it most of us have tried it out at some point or another. now let's compare the effect's of smoking the buds and leaves of the female plant to that of a legal dangerous drug, alchol. Marijuan kill's less brain cells then alchol. When user's stop smoking marijuana they do not go through withdrawl, like they do from alchol. Marijuan does NOT cause lung cancer. however, it does cause a heightened risk for upper and lower respatoriry infections, such as pneumia, and the common cold. It also has a wide variety of medical uses, that are too numerous to list. So why is the drug illegael. Well, that's an interesting story that has to do with American racism during the 1940's. During that time it was believed that if blacks and mexicans smoked marijuana they would become violent and rape whit woman. And now it's time for somewhat of a personal story. I have good friends that smoke marijuana on a regular basis. they are able to operate fine when under the drugs influence. however, that is not the same as alchol. I have lost 3 people in my life to a drug the U.S. gov says is safe for the use of people over 21. So when u hit 21 something magical happens and you can safely drink right! wrong. i had an aunt who was an alcholic. She went to re-hab left early came home got drunk and blew her brains out. I had a friend who at the age of 16 died from alchol poisoning, and just this summer I lost another close friend to a DUI. So why does the government let this poison flow freely? Currently marijuan is ranked by the DEA as just as dangerous as PCP, LSD, halligoungenic mushrooms, Meth, and ecstacy. Marijuana is currently classified as more dangerous then cocaine, heroin, oxyconton, and alchol. Why? because during thw 1970's president nixon belweived the smoking marijuan made young men unwilling to fight in vietnam, so he increased the penalties for simple possion of the substance. So in closing what's you opinoin? If you think that i'm crazy and stupid let me have but from where Im standing I see no reason for marijauan to be illegeal, let me here what you think!

O.K.

i ve been sitting here for a little bit trying to write a blog when in my mind I stumbled across the idea of cenorship. Why do we censor things? What all do we sensor? Who censor's what? And how do you spell censor is it with a C or an S? I don't know so im going with the C. The u.s. government (the FCC) currently censors all programs it feels may be offensive to viewers. But who decides what is offensive. I was recently watching Knocked Up with my family. My mom said that the marijuana use during the movie was offensive and that the govenrment shouldn't let people put that in their movies. I asked her about animal house where everyone is constallty shit faced. She responded by saying underaged drinking isn't illegael only frowned upon. Hmmm seems like shes a little confused. When the government allows things to go on television they engourage it she says. But is it the govenments job/ Aren't we all free to make our own choices without "big brother" trying to help us out? I guess not. I recently learned that th FCC is planning on censoring satillete radio streamed to american listeners. So now the govenment is telling us what we can and cant listen to. My question is even if material is offensive in nature isn't that for the listener/viewer to decide and not the govenrment. And how much longer untill offensive turns into something else. Soon enough maybe talking against the government will be offensive. And then we have lost yet another fundamental freedom. YOu see when people control what you listen to, watch, and read in a way they are starting to control the way you think. Because if we all are raised in the exact same environment then won't we all act the same way. So by censoring america we are losing are precious diversity, that which makes us the great nation which we have become today, and if we loose are diversity then what is cenorship but a holocaust of minds?

Case Study

It's time for another case study. This time I am going to talk about the last two pieces I wrote for this class, being the travel essay and the ad paper. I enjoy doing primary research so i relly enjoyed writing the travel paper. I llike to interview people and get their opinioins on subjects. SO i enjoyed the travel essay. However, I think it was kind of hard to do a travel essay for peoria Illinois. I am sorry but I think everyone will agree with me here that peoria/centeral Illinois in general is really kind of boring, with not much to do at all. I mean honestly how often are you sitting around your house bored and complaining that there is nothing to do in peoria? But i still enjoyed writing the essay and I think that i found a pretty decent topic, although it is kinda boring still. I also enjoyed writing the ad paper. When companies make ads they do it to persuade people to buy there products. And in the case of alchol tobacco, and many pharmaceticules they are selling a horrible product. Just a little sidenote persciption drugs, alchol, and tobacco kill nearly 2.2 millinon people in america each year, due to overdoses, and other healt risks. But heroin cocaine, and meth along with all other illiegael drugs only kill 10,000. Maybe we should let drug dealers advertisein magazine? Just kidding that would be a horrible idea. But now back on topic. I think that writing these ad papers will help people see that you need to look past the catchy pixctures, sex appeal, and what not. And if what I write can help someone else make a "good" choice then I am a very very happy person.

Religion and War

I found myself wondering this week what I should post my blog about. I have recently been reading a fasanating book about the third crusade entitled "warriors of god". The book depicts the religious conflice surronding the crusades , and provides biographical commentary and the lives of Richard the Lionheart, and Saladin. The book does a very decent job of staying un-biased although it leans towards the muslim viewpoint (which is suprising because the author is an American). For those of you who do not know the main cause of the crusades was differnces in to VERY similar religions, being Christianity and Islam. Both religions have the same basic princples their holy books were simply written by differnt people and in differnt religions. However, these minor differnces were the cause for untold bloodshed during the crusades. These differnces ,which can be more accuratley discribed as PERCIEVED differnces, are still the cause of a HUGE AMOUNT of blood shed in the modern world. Wether it is car bombings in Iraq, shootings in Jerusalem, or planes dropping bombs, the majority of the worlds wars seem to be cause by percieved differnces in relgioins. Most of the modern wars involve the three judiac mono-thestic relgions, being Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both Chistianity and Islam have their roots in Judaism and to some extent both honor their Jewish roots. However, these similaritys which vastly outweigh the differnces do not seem to stop the extremist followers of these regions from declaring war on each other, and bringing the other level headed members of their particular religion into the fight. The most extreme members of each relgion seem to forgot that Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammed all preched peace to other men. In fact all of these men saw and taught their followers that there was no reason to fight a war. So my question is is why do we follow extremists? Why cant we just stand back and with a level head take a look at things. is there really any need to fight over relgion. The answer ,from my psotion is NO! I do not believe that there is ever a reason to fight over relgion. Just for the readers refernce I will list some of what I beleive are "relgious wars" going on today. The most obvious is the Israeli-Arab conflict. In this conflict there has been never ending blood shed for the bast 60 years in an attempt for the Muslims and Jews to stake a claim to the same land. My question is this why can't the Muslims and Jews share a country? I know that I am not in their postion but it doesn't seem to much to ask for does it? I would not have a problem with our president being a Muslim, Jew, Buddisht, Atheist, or their relgious pratices at all! A leaders relgion does not nessacarily reflect on their "goodness" or ability to lead a nation. As long as the leader was equally fair to all relgious groups and treated them the same, people of faith should have no problem letting a person of a "differnt" faith lead them. The 2nd as last "relgious conflict" I will discuss is the U.S. war in Iraq. Although, I personally beleive that the war was for oil, it has enormous relgious contations. First Mr. President Bush , for some reason which is beyond me, called the war in Iraq a holy Crusade for the Christian people of the U.S. First off my question is this when did the U.S. become a SOLELY christian nation. I understand that the majority of people in this country are christian and that many of our fine national traditions are in fact Christian. However, the national government ,although made up of mostly christians, should not be pushing a Christian agenda, as per the bill of rights. The church and state should not be joined toegether, in fact in order to run a government effectivley they should be seperated, because relgious convictions ,no matter how rightoues, have no place in the running of government, because those in power will place religion above the needs of the people, which would defeat the purpose of having a government. In other words a religous governing body would serve the relgioin first and the populace second. Now back to Iraq. Becuase of Mr. Bush's so called "crusade" he has created an enemy. Invading Iraq was the worst thing Mr. Bush could have done if nhe was trying to make friends with the common middle eastern citizen. This war has given Islamic extermeist and excuse to pervet their relgioin and raise another generation to hate Chrisitans, America, and western society in general. So heres the question if we just learned to accept each others religous differnces, and accpeted we , at this time , cannot possibly know who is EXACTLY right and wrong when it comes to god, wouldnt we be much happier and the world a much better place?

what if u were livin yours instead of hatin mine?

why are we here? what is the purpose of life? although these seem like pretty deep metaphysical questions I will try and approach them in this blog. Since the dawn of time humanity has been tryin to improve its standing in the world, and so far we seem to have succeded. If we are doing so good then, why is their still problems. I beleive humanity is doing great, but there are some things we need to improve. one is all the hate not just in the world but in our country. We look down on a variety of people in this country wether it is because of their skin color, religious beliefs, sexual oreintation or other things. I think the reason we look down on people is because we think we can change people. I dont think we should try to change anyone. In america if you dont have money then you worthless, I hate that feeling. Although I was not born into poverty I went to a "wealthy" school known as dunlap. Even though I hate to sterotype Im going to have to say the majority of the people there were spoiled beyond belief. Kids drove cars to school that cost more then most of the houses I've lived in, and they looked down there nose at those who didn't have a nice car or wear designer jeans. I couldnt stand my school just because of the majority of the people who went there, people there didnt understand to concept of respect and friendship. Someone would talk nice to your face when they wanted something, but then the second your back was turned they would talk bad about you. people there would use you to get what they wanted then throw you away like a used tissue. Which brings me back to my poin. What if we took the money the differneces away from those people, then they would have nothing to brag about, sometimes I think that the only problem with our society is the $.

go home fag?

first off im sorry if the title and the contents of this story offend anyone, im not a judgemental person. Second im not really sure why I posted this here other then i wanted someone to read it, and this seemed like the place to put something i want read. Third, this is unfortunatley a true story, so i apologize if anyone is upset about the graphic language which is about to follow. you've been warned........ read on.

It was your average saturday night in peoria, I was taking my little brother to see a movie, btw if you're looking for a childrens film with a twisted plot line check out 9, the movie had just ended and a friend of mine who works at the theater was outside talking to me as we smoked a cigarette. A co-worker of his who happens to be gay was outside holding hands with his boyfriend and talking. Then, two people walked up and threw a drink at my friends co-worker, and called him a dirty aids infested homo. Now, there's two things in this world that set of my realativly long temper fuse, and people making stupid comments like that is one of them, so like any good person i politley told the angry young man to go and fuck off. Now that didn't sit to well with him. He started ripping in on me and my friend calling us dirty fag lovers and a slew of other bad name. Now, there is something you have to understand about my friend, even though he only wighs 140 lbs he is one of the toughest strongest people i know, in fact he lived in georgia for awhile and was the #4 wrestler in the state, he is also extremley loyal and will help his friends out no matter what. So what happens happens and a fight looks like it's about to break out when a city police officer comes up, he calmly asks what the problem is and when I told him my side of the story he responds that next time I should just keep my nose out of other people business and go home before he decides to lock me up for public disturbance. SO as im leaving my little brother and I are riding home, and he asks me why I would stick up for a gay person, I asked him what was wrong with being gay and he responded that everything was and that it was unnatural, i asked him where he learned that and he told me church. I really am starting to wonder what is wrong with the U.S.A, where people can't even respect the right to let people make their own choices, and fail to understand the fundemental right to persue happiness no matter what happens.

Thoughts

. I have a question. How come in most high schools they now drug test the majority of students. Is it really a schools responsibility especially one in the public sector to test all of the students that go there. No. Not only are high school’s now violating individual freedoms, but this process will also cost lots of money. That’s money that could be used to help perform a schools primary roll to educate. I think that schools are too focused on discipline and not on their primary task which is to educate the students. Take my high school for example. We never had a problem with gangs, stabbings, shooting etc, but now there are 2 police officers and they can randomly drug test any student whom drives to school. Last year a s a senior I took civics, the books were literally held together by tape and hot glue and were from 1998. So instead of buying civics text books which the state board of education mandates as a class we bought a rent a cop who simply walks around the school and hassles certain types of people all day long. Also, shouldn’t America have free post-secondary education? I honestly probably wouldn’t be able to come to college if it weren’t for the Peoria Promise Scholarship. I feel that we should extend this possibility to all students in the U.S. if not in the world.

thoughts

. I have a question. How come in most high schools they now drug test the majority of students. Is it really a schools responsibility especially one in the public sector to test all of the students that go there. No. Not only are high school’s now violating individual freedoms, but this process will also cost lots of money. That’s money that could be used to help perform a schools primary roll to educate. I think that schools are too focused on discipline and not on their primary task which is to educate the students. Take my high school for example. We never had a problem with gangs, stabbings, shooting etc, but now there are 2 police officers and they can randomly drug test any student whom drives to school. Last year a s a senior I took civics, the books were literally held together by tape and hot glue and were from 1998. So instead of buying civics text books which the state board of education mandates as a class we bought a rent a cop who simply walks around the school and hassles certain types of people all day long. Also, shouldn’t America have free post-secondary education? I honestly probably wouldn’t be able to come to college if it weren’t for the Peoria Promise Scholarship. I feel that we should extend this possibility to all students in the U.S. if not in the world.

Writing

One time writing went particularly bad for me was when I was in 8th grade. The writing assignment was to take any song and somehow relate it to your life. I toke the song Jesus of Suburbia by Greenday and tried to relate it to my life. The results were devastating. I received a poor grade on the paper for a number of reasons. The first being that the song I had chosen was not said to be “school appropriate” so I lost 15 points right away. I also didn’t even try to relate the song to my life, simply because I couldn’t find a song that fit my life very well. So, I simply choose a song that I liked and I choose Jesus of Suburbia. For part of the assignment we had to read our completed draft out loud in front of the class. Back in 8th grade I had a pretty bad speech impediment, and standing up in front of the class made me extremely nervous. While I was trying to read the assignment I got extremely nervous and lost my place and had to start over at least 3 times. Also, what bothered me in 8th grade was that the teachers, didn’t do much teacher revision, all of the editing before the final draft of the paper was turned in was done in a peer to peer setting. Now, I didn’t mind the teacher reading my paper but having a bunch of people whom I didn’t like knowing and reading my life story, as I tried to relate it to a song was a little embarrassing. However, for some reason 8th graders do not edit as hard as college educated teacher’s grade, so I lost quite a few points on the paper due to grammar problems, sentence structure, and a plethora of other areas of seemingly little interest to the average middle school student.

Cultural # 1

I went to a concert at Northminster Church. My friend’s band played. I think that this was a good cultural opportunity. He played the drums. Most of the music at the show was religious; however I usually do not like religious music. I liked it because of my friend’s band. I learned that music is fun. It was a good time. My friend and I went to my other friend’s house after the show and played guitar and talked. I think that this was a much better cultural opportunity then if I would have gone to a concert by a band or genre I enjoyed. This is because I think that when you do something that you do not like you learn a lot more. IT helps you explore other area’s. I usually hate going to and doing anything with any type of religious conitiations. This is because I don’t like going to church, most of the things they try to shove in my mind I don’t agree with. That’s not to say that I don’t believe in god because I do. I’ve actually read both the bible and the Koran and think that both have good morals. I think that what they say in church has nothing to do with the bible, and besides the bible has been so changed since the original days that I don’t even know what is true and what is false anymore. However, I enjoyed the concert and learned from it.

Writing

When I was in High School I hated school, writing, and doing work. This was for one simple reason. I did not get along with most of the teachers. For some reason I could never agree with the majority of them. There was one teacher with whom I was always butting heads. She by some unlucky miracle was my English teacher for my sophomore, junior, and the first semester of my senior year. At my high school for some odd reason some of the teachers believed that the point of the school was to discipline the students and not to teach them. My English teacher was one of those people. She stubbed out creativity, freedom, and excitement from her classroom. At one point one of my research paper received a failing grade after I had the teacher check it over for me and I made the corrections she had suggested. When I asked her why I got that grade she informed me that my view points were “too liberal” and that they did not accurately represent the truth. I was writing a paper about the gulf war and had suggested that the main reason for it had nothing to do with the freedom of a small country, but with the sheer amount of oil located inside Kuwait. Another time we were writing paper’s about constitutional issues in schools and I said that it should be illegal for police and school staff to search a student’s car or personal property without a warrant, after turning this paper in for some reason I had my car searched by the assistant principle. These experiences along with a plethora of other events helped me develop a mental block towards school work in general which in turn destroyed my GPA. However, I do NOT blame said teacher for my own poor grades in High School. Those are my responsibility and nobody else’s. But said English teacher, who will remain nameless, destroyed all self confidence I had in my writing ability.

Intro Letter

08/27/2009


Dear Stephanie:

Subject: Letter of introduction

The purpose of this letter is for me Joseph Scranton to formally introduce myself to you. In this letter I will inform you of my goals for the following semester and to introduce myself.
My name is Joseph Scranton and I was born in Peoria, IL in 1990. I grew up and attended Dunlap School District and in 2009 I graduated from my high school. In my spare time I like to play sports such as basketball, football, and baseball, and see movies with my friends. I like horror movies the best. I am going to ICC to major in History.
My first goal for the semester is to improve my writing structure. I believe I have a problem in formatting my papers and essays properly. I also feel that I have problems supporting my topic sentence in my body paragraphs. I also feel that my topic sentences at the beginning of my body paragraphs inadequately define the body paragraph. I also feel that my conclusion paragraph has problem’s restating the thesis sentence in the introductory paragraphs. I hope that through your class I may improve those areas.
I hope that through this letter you have learned about me.
Sincerely,

Joseph Scranton

First Blog Entry

Joseph Scranton
ENGL 110
09/1/09


Road Construction

The road construction which has recently over taken our state is I believe something to be happy about. It is good for quite a few reasons. One is that this road construction means one a large amount of hiring going out through the state. This will help to promote economic aid to the central Illinois area. This will mean more money being spent which in turn helps to economy go up because of the amount of increase in business throughout central Illinois. Second, after the construction is through there will be a noticeable difference in the quality of the roads throughout the area. This will be much easier on commuters traveling and will help consumers save gas money. The only downside of the road construction is the traffic. The traffic across the 150 bridge is horrible; commuters are backed up on miles of either side of the bridge in both directions. In the case of the road construction around the ICC campus and the rest of the central Illinois area the pros clearly outweigh the cons, and we should be overjoyed by the “excessive” amount of road construction in the area.