Getting Real

I decided to follow up on violent video games as an issue of modern life, but I'm also interested in links between violent video games and violent behaviour in society, so I went to The New York Times and entered the search words: "violent video games violence". This worked well. There were a few articles at the top of the list returned from the search that looked interesting. The one at the top was "Makers of Violent Video Games Marshal Support to Fend Off Regulation", which was published on January 11 this year. But in the end I decided that an article a bit lower down was more interesting to me: "Game Theory: A Year When Real-World Violence Crept Into Play".

Writing in "Game theory: A year when real-world violence crept into play", a largely personal reflection,  Chris Suellentrop argues video games are a communication medium able not only to thrill but to move players to tears as they address not only war but also relationships, and in so doing contribute positively to the lives of players. Suellentrop also admits and reflects on the issue of violence, often extreme, that is to be found in many video games, but here he also emphasis that research has not established any causal link, nor indeed even any correlation, between playing extremely violent video games and committing acts of violence in real like, leaving Suellentrop puzzling over why exactly he worries about allowing children to play such games. 

Having chosen this article based on a cursory skimming, when I came to actually read it I was first amazed at how little, really, really little, I know about modern computer gaming. I didn't know the names of the games or the people that Suellentrop refers to, and I had never realised that there was such a sophisticated discussion going on about the different values, effects, and other aspects of games. In my entire live, I've played one of these types of games - and that was about 15 years ago. I'm sure that what is available today is vastly more complex, and if Suellentrop is to be believed, and I assume he is an expert who knows what he's talking about, modern video games also now aspire to the status of an artistic medium. I'll probably take his word for it, but then again, I have this powerful computer I'm sitting in front of, and an equally powerful notebook sitting on the desk beside it: running a game or two might use up a bit of the available processing power that I probably never push to more than some small percentage of what is possible. I believe the tablet beside my bed (in case I want to do some quick research when reading in bed) can also play games. But they've just never excited me that much. 

The fuss about games, in contrast, does interest me. They are, like drugs, an issue of modern life where many people seem to prejudicially decide what must be right based on no good reason at all, and having invested a great deal of faith in that position, they resolutely ignore both reason and relevant facts as they set out on a crusade to safe other people, usually the youth of their society, from certain damnation. Sadly, this possibly well-intentioned (?) effort at redemption turns out like most: the victims to be saved end up as sacrifices to the ignorant, dishonest and unjust propaganda and laws of their would be saviours. The Jewish, Christian, Moslem and other churches, as law reminds us, often loved to "save" society and people from sin and from hell, even if that meant torturing and murdering many, as they also had ugly blasphemy laws made to protect their religions and themselves from any contact with evidence, with reason, with honesty or with justice and moral right. As Suellentrop concludes, although we might find the idea personally distasteful for some reason, is there actually any good reason not to allow kids to not only play video games, but to play extremely violent video games? 

Actually, I think that there might be a reason for saying, "Yes," that there is a good reason for restricting extremely violent video games, especially those with sexual content, to children over the age of abut 15, but I haven't thought it through in detail yet. In fact, it's an idea that might make a neat topic for a research paper: it's an idea that I might enjoy exploring as I learned more about it and the terrain it covers over a few weeks. 

I'm also wondering what other people think. Is there any good reason for banning extremely violent video games? Or any other sort of video games? Or indeed for banning films, and, to be up to date, TV soap operas of very doubtful merit? 

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Reference

Suellentrop, C. (2012, December 24). Game theory: A year when real-world violence crept into play. The New York Times Arts Beat. Retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/game-theory-a-year-when-real-world-violence-crept-into-play/

Supporting non-support?

Education being an issue for modern parents, and for teachers such as myself, I went to The New York Times and searched on "academic success", but that wasn't so rewarding, and simply searching on "college grades" also returned too much, so I then tried something a bit narrower that was more focussed on parents and success in college: "financial support college grades", which, after I narrowed the results to the "Past 7 Days", gave a decent looking list. The first one looked interesting, and was very recent, so I clicked on "Parents' Financial Support Linked to College Grades", which led to an immediate surprise since the page that opened was titled "Parents’ Financial Support May Not Help College Grades" - however, looking closely at the reference citation information, it appears from the URL that The NY Times might initially have published this article under, or at least have given it, the title that appeared on the search results.

In this article, Tamar Lewin reports on researcher Laura Hamilton's surprising lack of surprise at the surprising result that children who receive greater financial support from their parents do less well at college (2013). Hamilton admits that this not what is commonly believed, but she explains that the result may be due to students who do not have to make any sacrifice or effort themselves simply wasting the opportunity to get a decent education, something that Hamilton had suspected from what she observed during her own earlier personal experience of life in a dormitory.

When I saw the headline on the list of returned search items, I expected it to be a study reporting exactly what most people think: that students who get more financial support from their parents do better at university than those who get less. I was one of the people who were surprised by the facts that the research reveals. However, when I thought about it a bit more, Hamilton's explanation does sound right, and in fact chimes with my own memories of some students I knew at Sydney University, who spend their four or more years there largely having a good time, and working only hard enough to get passing grades, while their devoted and sacrificing parents, or their rich parents, paid all the bills. Of course, as Hamilton also acknowledges, not all students whose parents were paying behaved that way, and I was rather glad that my parents were kindly paying all of my expenses so that I could concentrate on my studies. Perhaps it also helped that my parents allowed me the freedom to choose to study what I truly loved, which is why I ended up with a mixed bag of mathematics, physics, and dead languages along with my major in philosophy - not the most useful sort of degree for most jobs, but I did get decent grades as well as having the leisure to enjoy the non-academic learning experiences that go with being a uni. student.

Hamilton's research also reminded me of a similarly surprising statistic, this time from an economist, who, after a careful analysis of a massive amount of data from the California High School System, found that whilst having books on shelves at home correlated strongly with children doing academically in school, parents reading to their children did not correlate at all with academic performance in schools. This is another fact that initially surprises most people, especially parents, who are naturally concerned for their own children (my  own fascination was more strictly academic, although I would like my young nieces and nephews to do as well as possible). And of course, just as Hamilton felt the need to explain her surprising result, we also want an explanation for these surprising statistical facts about how books on shelves and reading to children correlate with how the kids do at school. What do you think? What is the explanation for the seeming odd facts that having books on shelves at home correlates with children doing better at school, whilst parents reading to them does not so correlate?

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Reference

Lewin, T. (2013, January 14). Parents’ financial support may not help college grades. The New York Times. Retrieved January 16, 2013, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/education/parents-financial-support-linked-to-college-grades.html

Responding to "Old Country Advice to the American Traveller"

To complete our discussion of the introductory reading in Part 1 of chapter 6, "Old Country Advice to the American Traveller", please add a comment, or two, or three, responding with your ideas to any or all of questions 1. to 3. in exercise E. on page 199 (Hartmann & Blass, 2007).

These are

1. In what ways can another person's experience teach you something about life? Give an example of a time you learned something from someone else's experiences. 
2. Was there a time when someone's experience was not like your own? Explain your answer. 
3. What role do older friends and relatives play in your life? 

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Reference

Hartmann, P., & Blass, L. (2007). Quest 3 Reading and Writing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Giant monster?

Could you imagine that you encounter some enormous mollusk in the deep ocean?  The scenery will be beautiful or scary?

Accorcing to the article "First images of giant squid in the deep are released" by Michael Winter of USA TODAY,  the swimming giant squid that is 9-foot  Iong;  if the two tentacles were not cut it would be upto 26 feet long and the black big eye is as big as a dinner plate  photographed in July Chichi island in Japan by a three crew from the National Museum of Nature and Science. This
film will be air on January 27, 2013 as a finale of this season of Curiosity ; more over, this is the first film of live giant squid in its natural state.

Abnormal giant things are enough to attract human eyes. I also remember since my childhood I have been caught by the stories of the giant humen or monsters like that huge squid or whale, but they were just only mythology or products of imagination of human for us.

Twenty thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) by Jules Verne who is called the Father of science fiction was very impressive so I still remember the
captain Nemo and submersible Nautilus, farms under the sea and the attack by the giant mollusk. Now most parts of the story became normal but the scenery of the squid will be astonish and unbelievable.

I think the three crew were very lucky because they could shoot without any
attack of the life. If they met in the past they couldn't report the feature was beautiful.


References

-"Jules Verne"(7.January.2013)from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia modified on January 2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne

-" (Michael Winter)" First images of giant squid in the deep are released" (Michael Winter) USA TODAY 6:20p.m. EST January8,2013http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/sciencefair/2013/01/08/giant-squid-filmed-first-time-in-pacific/1818751/   

The Complicated Case of Banana Trade

Banana seems to be a common fruit that can be found in many tropical countries around the world, especially in Asia. Have you ever thought that bananas play a significant role for the nation as a whole?

According to “India bananas seek bigger share of global market”, Sivaramakrishnan says that due to an enormous number of bananas produced in Tamil Nadu, the southern part of India, the Confederation of India Industries (CII) plans to grab more market share in the worldwide banana industry by exporting them globally. Nevertheless, the barriers of this plan have been pointed out, including, post-harvest losses, a trust deficit, a low-tech productivity and competitive rivalry.

From my perspective, in order to effectively deal with the problems mentioned in this news, trust is one of the most vital issues which the CII, and also any relevant sectors, should not take for granted. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is what I learned in the Business course at my university. We have to concern about all stakeholders in the supply chain otherwise our business is prone to be in trouble. During my internship at Ministry of Commerce, for instance, there were protests of farmer unions almost every week. Some of them wondered whether they directly gained benefits from the policies while some suspected about the possibility of the schemes. In this case, the CII may help Indian banana growers solve some problems about the production or acknowledge them about advantages which they will gain when this plan is succeeded. If the CII cannot build trust, there will be no cooperation thus it’s no use trying to accomplish its plan.

Turning to post-harvest losses, banana normally ripens faster than other kinds of fruits. When I bought bananas from supermarket, their green colour at times turns into yellow quickly. I am fascinated by the bananas food processing. There are various kinds of those transformed products in Thailand, namely, banana chips, banana ice-cream, sun-dried banana and butter coated banana. I think there would be great opportunities for India to expand the banana product line and an amount of post-harvest losses tends to be declined.

Regarded as the largest banana producing country, India should find some efficient means to obtain competitive advantages from its own natural resources. Not only the CII but also Indian banana growers need to take responsibility for this issue together.

__________

Reference

Sivaramakrishnan, P. (2013, January 3). India bananas seek bigger share of global market. BBC News. Retrieved January 9, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20888103

Can Mozart Increase IQ?

We all want be smart. Have you ever heard that listening to Mozart's music can strengthen your intelligence?

According to the neuroscience article, "Does listening to Mozart really boost your brainpower?" written by Claudia Hammond on BBC Future, the worldwide believe that Mozart songs can help baby or children more clever is a big misunderstanding issue since the study which spread this believe was taken in young adult students. However, listening to any kinds of music -- even if pop music -- can help adults raise short-term abilities to solving problems due to the pleasantness from beautiful rhythm.

In my childhood around three years old, I listened to a plenty of tale stories from cassette tapes. In each story, it was inserted with varied classical music, which I know their name later, such as "The Four Seasons" composed by Vivaldi, "Symphony No. 40" of Mozart, "Symphony No.  9" of Beethoven and more which I cannot remember. In that time, I though that these songs make me interested in the story and can imagine a clear scene without any picture books. Moreover, the tone of the music can impact on my mood; for example, the "Spring" (one of "The Four Seasons") encourage me in the action scene. On the other hand, "Fall" depress my emotion when it comes to the dramatical climax.

In these days,  I still listen to classical music but not frequently. While I am working or reading, I always listen to music from Youtube. It allows me relieve my tension and can be more concentrated with smooth mood. Therefore, now, I use music to improve my working potential.

Do classical musics raise my intelligence owing to my childhood familiarised with them? Probably not, I think that it is not a direct effect. I have more concentration while I listen to them. That makes me can understand more easily.

Although music cannot improve our cleverness scientifically, music is one of the most beautiful creation of humanity which can, at least, delight one's mind.

__________

References

Hammond, C. (2013, January 8). Does listening to Mozart really boost your brainpower?. BBC FUTURE. Retrieved January 8, 2013 from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130107-can-mozart-boost-brainpower/1

Swaminathan, N. (2007, September 13). Fact or Fiction?: Babies Exposed to Classical Music End Up Smarter. Scientific American. Retrieved January 8, 2013 from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-babies-ex

From London underground to Mother of river

When you think about London what come to your mind? BigBen, red telephone booth, London eye, tea shop, anything else? A red circle with blue thick line might be somewhere in your imaginary.

In “ Tube 150^th anniversary: Brand 'worth its weight in gold' ” in the BBC News website , Majumdar says that the London underground sign; a red disk with the blue strip, contains high value in the term of brand identity. Apart from its duty to unify different company of underground train companies into one brand, it become another iconic signature of London till many products with the logo can be sold as souvenirs.

This article reminds me of a cute Shinkansen doll I received as a souvenir from my friend after she visited Japan. A white and blue train with the big black eyes and pink dots on its “cheek”, is very cute illustration of one of the fastest trains in the world. I think the Japanese are very good at creating character for their products. They can turn product or everything around them into a cute character which brings many advantages from the marketing perspective. The consumer can easily remember the brand and they feel closer to the product because of the process of personification. Moreover, this technique can turn a simple item into a unique and precious one. It is called value adding technique. What Katie said in my previous blog post is a good example of this issue. Unpan man animation can create the fad of eating unpan. The normal bread is be added value by the animation.

Turning to another point of view, I think the characterize technique might start from a non marketing reason. The Japanese and Asian people (may be include the ancient European),in the past, they held a believe that everything around us have a spirit inside it. For example, the river, Thai believe that there is Pha Mae Kongka (Mother of river) who is the spirit who take care of the river. The forest, the house everything around us have spirit to protect them. Although it might sound unreasonable and unscientific, I think it is a good technique from the past to make people respect to the nature and feel guilty to destroy it just for satisfying human's endless need. Unfortunately, these useful believes were replaced by the thoughts from scientific world in the enlightenment era.

We have the ability to create value from 'almost nothing'; like, the Coke logo which is just some white line on red background. This logo worth billion dollars. In contrast, for the priceless nature of this world, we neglect to protect it by saying that characterizing nature is a fool believe from the ancient time. :(

__________

Reference

Majumdar, D. (2013, January 8). Tube 150^th anniversary: Brand 'worth its weight in gold'. BBC News London. Retrived January 8, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20916568

What I missed

One of all country’s dreams is having abundant natural resources. How about oil? Oil means money?

In “Oil Sands Industry in Canada Tied to Higher Carcinogen Level”, Ian Austen says that oil sands development of Alberta, Canada, has increased levels of cancer-causing compounds in surrounding unexpected wider area according to Canadian researchers’ report, where they reported the cancer-causing compounds in layers of the sediment have been rising since large-scale oil sands production began in 1978.

This is sad news. Our natural environment has been destroyed for our convenience, but we already knew this. We have been concerned the spreading reckless using limited natural resources, environmental pollution, destruction of the ozone layer, the global warming, etc. These things are caused by human’s thoughtless production and consumption. I’m sorry that we live in the world where the consumption is a type of virtue in the name of development. According to the rule of cause and effect, after overuse our nature, we have to face the results. So, it’s sad news.

However, drawing my attention is not the sadness to the bad news, but it is the oil sands. What are the oil sands? It’s the first time I see the word. They are a type of “unconventional petroleum deposit” (Oil sands, 2012). They have recently been considered to be part of the world’s oil reserves because higher oil prices and new technology enable profitable extraction and processing, and are found in extreamly large amounts in Canada. Just before the reporting there was nothing proved harmfulness scientifically. Only there have been concerns which have been raised concerning the negative impacts on public health. I come to be a little bit more informed myself.

My mom says that she feels sometimes the world changes too fast to catch. Now, I feel like her. From now, I decide to pay more attention to the world.

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Reference

Austen, I. (2013, January 7). Oil Sands Industry in Canada Tied to Higher Carcinogen Level. The New York Times. Retrived January 8, 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/world/americas/oil-sand-industry-in-canada-tied-to-higher-carcinogen-level.html?hp

Oil sands. (2012, December 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:09, January 8, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oil_sands&oldid=527937485

Moving On Heroes

When I saw the title "David Bowie releases first single in a decade" in the "Most Popular" list on the BBC News home page, I had to read it. For many of my generation, Bowie was something of a hero, at least in music.

According to "David Bowie releases first single in a decade" (2013), 66 year old singer David Bowie has released his first new work in ten years, to the delighted surprise of many admirers, such as Caitlin Moran who describes it as "hearing King Arthur's voice from the cave" ('Mystique' sect.). The report says that both the sophisticated video that accompanies them and the lyrics refer to Berlin, which is connected with Bowie's 1977 album Heroes.

As you probably guessed from my introduction, I was, and have remained, an admirer of Bowie since the 1970s, when he was building up a reputation not only amongst the fans who bought his albums (these were records containing collections of songs back in those ancient days when the internet had never been thought of, there were no such things as DVDs, and cassette tapes were the latest cutting edge in music technology), but also amongst other musicians and singers, many of whom acknowledge the influence he had on them. And because he changed to much almost with every album released, he appealed to many different people in many different ways. I don't listen to music a lot, and when I do, it's usually classical, but Bowie is one of the very small group of rock musicians whose work I do like. I don't listen to it that much now, but every now and then I watch an old video on YouTube - because of the strong connections with the time each song came out, they remind me powerfully of where I was and what I was doing at the time. I can't hear "Ashes to Ashes" from the 1980 album  Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) without remembering very clearly lots of details about where I was living at university and what I was doing at the time, and like his latest, this song too makes references to his earlier work, in this case, to "Space Oddity" (1972), one of his most famous songs, which introduces the "hero" Major Tom. And then there was that 1977 album  Heroes ...

Not so entirely cheerful was noticing on the video embedded in the BBC News story how old Bowie looks, but not even heroes can stay young forever, and one of the things I always liked about Bowie, in addition to his great music, was that although he was very well aware of it, he did not run his life according to other people's often ill-founded expectations and irrational notions about what is or is not "proper", for a somewhat awkward and insecure teenager and young adult at university, this was also very inspiring. And today, he has clearly not followed the mob into desperately using plastic surgery and other things to try to look as though he's still in his forties. He looks like what he is: a 66 year old man who has led a very rich and rewarding life.

Even tough I had already blogged in response to a story in The New York Times, this word hero in the BBC News story made it irresistible to me to blog when I saw it as I was having my evening coffee.

But is he a hero?

__________

Reference

Bowie, D. (1972). Space Oddity [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcyuKUtgyZ8

Bowie, D. (1980). Ashes to Ashes [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMThz7eQ6K0

David Bowie releases first single in a decade. (2013, January 8). BBC News Entertainment & Arts. Retrieved January 8, 2012 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20943160

How do we live without Butter and Cream?

What's your favorite dish? Do you concern about nutritious or delicious or both?

In "Hold the butter", Gordinier said that SPE, "stand for Sanitas Per Escam", which means “health through food”, is new standard for healthy food in the United States, which is created the recipes by chef and dietitian, that cook with abundant of nutrients and low salt without cram and butter but still delicious; however, many chefs in restaurants, who never want to give up or change their cooking style and recipe, disagree with this standard . 

Actually, I don't want to read such a long article like this, but it's very interesting for cooking and eating lover like me. Since I was young, I always ate a piece of cake after back home because my mom used to be baker before. I really love my mom's cake with a lot of cream and butter. Though my mom isn't bake a cake for sale anymore, our family still spend weekend with baking some sweets. Sometimes I try to change our recipe to decrease butter or sugar, but my mom, who create the recipe, and my younger brother disagree with my ideas. They said that cake without butter and cream is not cake. 

My brother has said that butter isn't always a bad thing, but margarine is more dangerous from trans-fat, that cause of clogged in blood vessel. But why we concern about butter so much, if you eat it properly. Now there are many food additives that add in our food today. Sometimes I'm not sure when they label "NO MSG(Monosodium Glutamate)" because there is MSG in other sources of ingredients. Including farm animals and crops, they start to receive chemical and many pollutant from water or soil. If you are worried too much, you may be died from nutrition imbalance!! 

The better ways to be healthy is to eat food with nutrients - protein, carbohydrate, vitamins, minerals and fat- and to work out properly. By the way, I really interested in SPE menu, I want to try one. And I will tell you what it taste like.

Does it look yummy or awful?
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Reference

1. Gordinier, J.(2013, January 7). Hold the butter. The New York Times. Retrieved January 8, 2013. from: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/dining/hold-the-butter-healthy-food-served-here.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw

2. Johnson, K. (2012, September 30)Understanding Trans Fat. WebMD. Retrieved January 8, 2013. from:http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/understanding-trans-fats

Fighting Reasonableness

Confirming its role as the Thailand's most deadly drug of addiction, the Interior Ministry reports that alcohol was involved in a whopping 46.9% of traffic accidents over the New Year holiday period, when 332 people were killed in the first six days ("First 6 Days", 2013). Although much lower than the alcohol fuelled death rate of Thailand, the United States is seeking to further reduce its traffic death statistics, which are still high when compared to other developed nations such as Australia, whose fatality rate from road accidents is only about 1/3 that of the US.

In his The New York Times editorial "Is the Driver Drunk?", Lincoln Caplan approves of the decision by the Supreme Court of Missouri to rule illegal a forced blood test on a drunk driving suspect done by police without first obtaining a court warrant (2013). The State of Missouri and the US government is now appealing to the US Supreme Court to reverse the lower courts decision, which Caplan argues would violate the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.

My first reaction when I read Caplan's opinion piece was that it's a good example of a common mistake made by people with genuinely good intentions. The Missouri State government, in agreement with the US government, and I am sure Caplan, the judges on the Missouri Supreme Court and everyone else, wants to reduce deaths from road accidents. Everyone agrees that this is a good aim. Similarly, I am sure that everyone agrees that drug use, in particular alcohol use, is a major cause of road deaths - the statistics for this are overwhelming, as the report in Thailand's Nation makes clear, and repeats annually every New Year and Songkran: surely no one doubts that alcohol is the truly harmful drug here. The solution, surely, is also agreed on by all: reduce drunk driving. So far, everyone is in agreement about a serious social problem and a highly desirable goal; however, as the ruling against the State of Missouri police department by the Missouri Supreme Court shows, there is great disagreement on the means to reach that goal, with the government thinking it's OK to allow the police to force blood or other tests without getting a court warrant to permit it first, and the judges and others thinking that such a procedure is very definitely not OK. I think we see the same sort of situation in other social issues: people tend, for example, to agree that teenage pregnancies are a bad thing, but the solutions they propose are often in violent disagreement: some sensibly think that teenage girls who fall pregnant should be offered a safe, legal abortion, whilst others irrationally and immorally think that such unhappy young women, often still in school, should be forced to bear a child that is not wanted and have their lives destroyed, to the benefit of no one and the great harm of themselves and society. (Can you infer which solution I favour in this example?)

In the specific case of suspected drinking and driving, I would agree with Caplan who argues that the alcohol in someone's blood does not disappear so quickly that the police do not have time to get permission from a court for their search of the person's blood. Certainly, it is a good thing to check the alcohol use of drivers and to punish those are guilty of endangering or actually killing other people because they have a couple of glasses of wine at dinner and then decide to drive home instead of getting a taxi or making some other safe arrangement that does not put the lives of other people at risk. I think it's perfectly OK, although perhaps very stupid, for people to put themselves at risk or actually harm themselves, so that we cannot, for example, use the fact that yaa baa is very unhealthy, like alcohol and cigarettes, as a reason to ban people from using it: if they want to harm themselves, for whatever reason, that's their choice. The law may only justly interfere to stop them if they are harming or threatening others, and drinking wine before you drive definitely threatens, and often harms, other people on the road.

Saving lives is good thing, but not every effective way to do that is acceptable.

__________

Reference

Caplan, L. (2013, January 5). Is the Driver Drunk? The New York Times. Retrieved January 8, 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/opinion/sunday/is-the-driver-drunk.html

First 6 days of New Year Holiday see 332 deaths. (2013, January 3). The Nation. Retrieved January 8, 2013 from http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/First-6-days-of-New-Year-Holiday-see-332-deaths-30197146.html

Katie's heroes

My memory about heroes began with American comics where main characters are Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Wonderwoman, and so on. They all have super power which is not real in the real world but always help people against evil power. For me it was most imprinted fact to be a hero to have super power. I couldn't understand people who don't have super power are called heroes during my childhood. In my case, heroes equal to people have super power against to evil counter parts.

When I could see the real world, I realized that my heroes are just in comic books. In the real world, there is no super power like in comic books. However I still like my heroes' qualification: super power part. Maybe it is the same reason that children are crazy about magic in Harry Potter. If Harry weren't a wizrad, the story would be boring and no interesting like now. Heores in story could give some dream to people event though people come to be grown-ups. Until now, my number one hero is Superman.

I'm wating new super hero's birth which could overcome my hero. From amazing imagination, people could create another type of hero whom people living this time want to have.

Ob's hero

When the word "Hero" comes to my mind, the first idea is my mother. Since I can remember, I never stand far from her. She always stays with me every time both happy and sad time.

Due to raising me and my brother as a single mom, she has not much time to take care of herself. In my childhood, she looked after us patiently. She was never angry on us when three little boys fought one another. She sacrificed her comfort to make her children pay more attention to study by doing all housework by herself without ask for any help from me. Three meals a day for four people were cooked delicately. While she worked so hard, my brothers and I sometimes did not act as she want. We often played computer games before do our homework, but she never yell on us. She still taught us to be a reasonable boys for our society.

When I grow up, my mother still my beloved hero. Even I meet so many people, I never meet anyone who is as patient, calm and generous as her.

Air's Heroes

When I was young, I love watching Japanese animation. The characters from them became my imaginary heroes. My most favorite character is Un-pan man which is a flying man whose head made of bread and has super power to help other people in his city. What made I am impress about him is the scene which he often gives away some part of his bread head to the kids who feel hungry or need more energy. At that time, I felt he does a great scarification to lose some part of himself for helping other( although he always receive a new head from a baker after that).

From my fantasy hero in the past, I think the core qualification to become a hero is does not change much but it only become more realistic. I think what make a person become a hero is the strong will to take action to help other people or society. Although that person might face some difficulties, they does not give up and they do not what anything in return. In my opinion, a volunteer in Ruam ka tun Yoo is a hero, a good monk who guide people to the good will is a hero.  Anyone can be a hero :)

Jennifer's heroes

When I was an elementary student my hero was Konan, a boy, the main character of Japanese animation by directed Miyajaky Hayaho. In the gloomy future world in despite of the boy is a just orphant , he dosesn't lose his positive attitudes and delightful character.

 He also devotes his life for thelovely young girl, Nana who is chased a gruop of people  to seek her grandfather and his astonishing discovery.

Still the young boy is a good hero whenever I remind the movie, his bright smile and powerful positive energy
make me smile and happy.

Peter's heroes

Who were my heroes when I was a child? The first one that comes to mind is Batman. I liked his cool costume, and the baddies. Actually, I think the baddies were more interesting than the rather nice and boring Batman and his mate Robin. I especially remember Eartha Kitt dressed up in tight, sexy, black leather prowling around as Cat Woman. I can't remember what she did, but Batman boringly fell in love with her. Of course, Batman was also dressed up in a way that I'm not sure impressionable young children should be exposed to: unlike Cat Woman brandishing whips in leather, Batman went about in snug rubber like costumes which showed off his bulging muscles, especially when he was tied up. Now that I look back, it was all very camp with strong hints of SM sex. But it was also fun, and Batman was a hero. I would rush home after school and make sure I'd done my chores so that I was free to get my daily 30 minute hit of Batman. I think the stories were an hour each, but split into two half-hour sessions. At the end of the first half, Batman was always about to die some horrible death, usually tied up by some wonderful villain - the Penguin, the Joker, Sandman, Tut, Cat Woman, or whoever.

Other childhood heroes? When I visited my grandmother's house, one of the attractions was her large supply of comics, and the Phantom was one of my favourites. Like Batman, he was strong, wore a sexy outfit over his muscles and lived in a cave, but he was actually more exciting because he was a bit wilder - I don't remember him working with the police as he defeated the bad guys who were trying to steal treasure from a local jungle temple, enslave the tribes or kill an explorer. I think what appealed to me was the power and strength to act as he saw fit. And this sort of connects with an idea in Nietzsche, who became a hero much later. Friedrich Nietzsche was a great German philologist and philosopher who explored the idea that Christianity was a malignant illness that afflicted Western civilization at the cost of the true Western values enshrined in Homer. And Homer heroes definitely rate as heroes if our definition is that of a self-willed man with the strength to enforce order on society.

But Homer's heroes are a bit more sophisticated than mere brute force, and lead naturally to the classical Greek ideals that we see in Socrates and later thinkers, who became my heroes from high school on. But I also think some scientists qualify as heroes - who could deny that title to someone like the brave and brilliant Copernicus and Galileo?

Today? Maybe I'll write a bit more this evening.

Mo's heroes

Every kids has watched Cartoon particularly Japanese cartoon or "manga". Including me, I crave in "manga" which is my favorite hobby to spend my time with "manga" books since I was young. And i found my first hero in there.

My first hero is "Sailor Moon", which is heroine to prevent bad demons to destroy our world. She starts with clumsy behavior and slightly reveal her strong and brave trough later chapters. Also she is very cute with her face and costume.

When I was young, a hero is people who wear a special costume and has special power in order to protect the world from bad guys. But now I change my mind, a hero can be normal people like me who has a strong power to do a good thing to many people and be a good example to be my inspiration. So now my mom is my hero.She has a power to lead our family in good way and never give up when we are in trouble. She's always there to protect from bad thing and suggest when i did something wrong. Without her, I cannot be me today.

Our Heroes - warming up to "Heroes in Literature"

If you have already had a look, you will have seen that the title of Unit 3 in Quest is "Heroes in Literature". In this chapter, Hartmann and Blass (2007) lead us through an academic exploration of how heroes function in literature.

We are now going to discuss the introductory questions on the opening page, 193, of chapter 6, except that rather than discuss them in groups as Hartmann and Blass had in mind, we are going to write down our responses in a blog post, on each of which we can then comment.

So, start your new blog post, for which I suggest "Xxxx's Heroes" or something similar with your name in it for a title, and then write for 15 minutes. You should be able to write two or three decent paragraphs on the ideas that come to mind in response to Hartmann and Blass's questions on page 193:

• Who were your heroes when you were a child? 
• How have your ideas of heroism changed since then? 
• What qualities make someone a hero?

There is no need to discuss these questions in any particular order, or even to discuss them all as separate questions. Their purpose is to get you thinking. Your job is to write down what you think in clear sentences, one after another. I suggest you not spend more than 10 seconds planning. This is response writing, so just start writing, and that will likely suggest the next idea, perhaps a detail or perhaps something quite different. When you want to make a larger change, start a new paragraph. 

Go. 

__________

Reference

Hartmann, P., & Blass, L. (2007). Quest 3 Reading and Writing, (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Welcome to Reading Writing 6, term 1, 2013.

Thank you for registering for the Reading and Writing level 6 class in AUA's Academic English Program (AEP).

Over the next six weeks we will be working through two chapters in Hartmann's Quest 3 Reading and Writing [Quest] (2007), with which book everyone will already be familiar from level 5 in a previous term. As usual, we will be doing both a a bit more writing than Quest asks for and a bit more reading. We will do one chapter from each of Unit 3, "Literature", and Unit 4, "Ecology". If you would like a warm-up reading skill exercise, what clues to help us understand the word ecology do we get from economics, which we spent some time on in level 5?

And this being 2013, we will be using the tools that are normal in modern academic institutions: email, the internet and so on; academics and students no longer submit their written work on scraps of paper, and we won't be doing that either.

I hope that you find the class both enjoyable and challenging so that our six weeks together will be productive and pleasant.

And if you ever have any question about anything, please feel welcome to ask us in class, email me, or write it up here on our class blog (Peter, 2011).

__________

References
Hartmann, P. & Blass, L. (2007). Quest 3 Reading and Writing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Peter. (2011, February). AEP, Blogging our class. Class Blog - AEP at AUA. Retrieved January 5, 2013 from http://peteraep.blogspot.com/p/blogging-our-class.html

Leadership

According to Joanne Ciulla, "Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good." (1998, p. 30) Based on this opinion, people will think of many well-known leaders in this world, for example, Abraham Lincoln, who was the 16^th President of United States of America, emancipated slavery in U.S., and was a great leader who could lead people, especially rival groups, to achieve common goals, Deng Xiaoping, who was the Chinese President and significantly reformed politics, society, and an economy in China, and Adolf Hitler, who was the leader of the Nazi Party and brought people to catastrophe in World War II. Obviously, the leaders in these examples succeeded in building a complex moral relationship between their people, although there are two opposite results; in other words, Lincoln elevated human equality and living quality; meanwhile, Hitler destroyed human life. Furthermore, if we determine Ralph’s leadership in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies by this definition, Ralph does definitely not possess leadership. Even though he has been voted to be the leader of the children because of his charisma and possessing the conch, he fails to build a complex moral relationship between his colleagues. The strong evidence that shows his lack of leadership is the group meeting held by Jack in order to remove Ralph from the chief of group shown in “Gift for the Darkness” and “A View to a Death” in Lord of the Flies. After Jack and Ralph have come back from hunting the beast, Jack calls the meeting and requests the children to vote to remove Ralph from being the chief of the children. Although the children do not immediately respond to Jack’s challenge at that time and Jack has to leave the group, almost all of the children finally decide to be on Jack’s team and Ralph’s group decreases to only four people including himself. From the character in the novel to people in the real world, unfortunately, people generally love to have a leader who is charismatic, and they understand that this is the most important trait of leadership; in fact, we find a lot of examples that show charismatic leaders cannot lead countries or groups to achieve targets. Joseph Estrada, who was a film actor and became the 13^thPresident of the Philippines during 1998 – 2001, is a famous example of a charismatic leader who leads the country to face many social and economic problems, and he is finally sentenced to jail after being found guilty of corruption.

Reference

Ciulla J. (1998) What is Leadership? Centre for Leadership Studies.University of Exeter.

Excellent examples. Sad example.

Let's start with the good news, which is your excellent discussion this morning that followed from the excerpt from Chieko's introduction to her essay on abortion, which you will be able to read in a day or two.

The excerpt is:

According to “Rep. Todd Akin: The Statement and the Reaction”, U.S. Rep. Todd Akin tells in an interview that “it seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” What do you think about his statement? Why can such a man with wrong knowledge involve himself in abortion argument?

And the main questions were:

1. Is Rep. Akin entitled to his opinion? 
2. Is his opinion correct? 
3. Is his opinion reasonable? 
4. Is his opinion just and moral sound? 
5. Or is it completely stupid, being worthy only of contempt and ridicule? 
6. What does it mean to say that someone is “entitled to their opinion”?
   • What doesn’t it mean?
   • Why are these questions important to us? 

The question that took us the longest to answer satisfactorily was 3. And as Air helped us to see, the problem causing disagreement were the very different ideas people had concerning the meaning of the word reasonable. We had fairly easily agreed (only took about 5 minutes) that reasonable meant "having good reasons", but the problem then was to give some substance that very vague adjective "good".

A couple of examples quickly helped us to see that Air's group's first suggestion, that good reasons must be logical, was right. 

But although necessary, is being logical also a sufficient condition for a reason to be good, to be reasonable?   It's the solution to this problem that I want to focus on, since it provides another excellent example of the value of well-chosen examples to clarify and support an idea which is complex and abstract, as the idea of reasonableness is. 

Anne gave us a useful start when she suggested the idea of asking her mother for some money, and the need to give reasons for such a request. With a little creative thinking, and our purpose in mind, we came up with four different examples of reasons that Anne might give for a request for money. These were, in order, if I remember correctly, and slightly revised:  

1. I'm going register for the next term at AUA, which will improve my English. 
2. I want to buy an iPad, which will help me to study more effectively. 
3. I dreamt the winning numbers for the Australian lottery, so need to fly to Sydney to buy a ticket. 
4. The world will end on December 21, in ten days time, as we know from the ancient Mayan prediction that is now well-known on the Internet, and I need the money to buy a ticket on a spaceship from a man I met in a pub last night. 

When we then looked at these in order, we able to assign percentages for a rough measure of how reasonable each each is. There were:

1. = 90%  or more 
2. = 50%  or perhaps a bit more (we're trusting Anne on this)
3. = 0% or so. Perhaps a little more than zero. 
4. = less than 0% = -90% or so. 

With this array of data agreed on, we could look to see what was going on in this example. What were we doing when we assigned these percentages as a measure of how reasonable an idea was? 

Again, another example, this time what vets such as Mo do when they decide to use or not use a new drug (this example took a bit of revising to get it exactly right) helped to clarify the ideas that were floating around, and enabled us to conclude that the important extra thing in addition to being logical is that reasonable also means "having relevant evidence". The evidence can be experience (Anne's mum's experience tells her that when asked for some money to register at AUA, it's not a lie and leads to something useful), reliable reports from sources, and so on. 

This finally led us to a definition of reasonable as meaning "being logical and having (enough) relevant evidence". This definition makes sense of our responses to all of the examples, and sounds right. And with this definition in place, we can answer question 3. about Rep. Akin's opinion that  "a legitimate rape" does not normally lead to a pregnancy: it is not at all reasonable. 

And then we were ready to look at questions 1. and 6., for which we decided, again after some argument about the meaning of  entitled to an opinion,  that yes, he is certainly entitled to his opinion, but that without good reasons (reasonable reasons) to support it, he cannot expect anyone to take it seriously, or refrain from laughing at it. He certainly cannot expect anyone to accept it unless he provides support to show that it is reasonable. And since the facts are against him, he will fail. 

This matters for students in an academic English course, especially writing course, because in an academic setting, you are only entitled to have taken seriously an opinion for which you can give reasonable support. 

And as our example about a geocentric universe showed, being wrong does not mean that a belief is unreasonable. Aristotle believed the Earth to be at the centre of the universe, which was perfectly reasonable around 330 BC, and does not reduce our great admiration of and respect for Aristotle. The same belief, which some still hold in 2012, is perfectly idiotic and not remotely reasonable. Sadly, it appears that about 18% of Americans do believe the idiotic (Crabtree, 1999). And the reason for this unreasonable belief is typically religious, for example, in the case of Roman Catholic apologist Robert Sungenis, the supporting "evidence" is the Bible, verses such as "Joshua 10:12-14: 'And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, while the nation took vengeance on its foe' " (Moran, 2011, ¶ 9). Since this supporting evidence has a reasonableness rating of about  99% below zero (-99%), it cannot help much to support anything. 

Even more sad is the fact that 46% of Americans believe, on religious, usually Biblical, grounds "in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" (Newport, 2012, ¶ 1). In the case of Republican voters, it's a whopping 58% who are so seriously unreasonable. I'm not sure that sad is the right word. Perhaps alarming is the more appropriate adjective. All of these people are entitled to their weird and wholly unreasonable opinions, but they are not entitled to have anyone else take them seriously or not laugh at such absurdly unreasonable opinions. Thankfully, American scientists do laugh at such nonsense, and American judges refuse to take it seriously when believers try to get their ideas taught in schools as science rather than fantasy. 

__________

Reference

Crabtree, S. (1999, July 6). New Poll Gauges Americans' General Knowledge Levels: Four-fifths know earth revolves around sun. Gallup.  Retrieved December 11, 2012 from http://www.gallup.com/poll/3742/new-poll-gauges-americans-general-knowledge-levels.aspx

Moran, A. (2011, August 29) Conservative Catholics say Galileo was wrong, geocentric is right. Digital Journal. Retrieved December 11, 2012 from http://digitaljournal.com/article/310901

Newport, F. (2012, June 1). In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins. Gallup Politics. Retrieved December 11, 2012 from http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx