Calvino Essay

                                                               Pride and Shame
    Q often goes back and forth between pride and shame. First, we see Q’s reaction to his fiance’s abandonment. “It was a hard blow for me. But, after all, what could I do about it?” Q was greatly looking forward to getting married to Lll, but had his worries about her meeting his uncle, Nba Nga. His fears were nothing compared to what happened later. After meeting with the uncle a few times, Lll decides to live with him and marry him. Q then goes from joy to depression and shame. He cannot believe that Lll chooses a fish’s live with Nba Nga over a reptile’s life with Q.
    Next we see Q after he gets a place in the pack of non-dinosaurs, he has to make a choice on whether to leave the non-dinosaur pack and join his brothers, or stay with the pack and his new brothers. “Now, here in the village, I had achieved a new kind of tranquility and I was sorry to lose it.” This takes place when a Q receives news that there are other dinosaurs, and he is not the last one. He had made a bond of brotherhood with the new pack he was in, but knowing that he still had family somewhere else put a fork in his road of destiny. He had to make a hard choice on who to live with.
    Finally, we see that Q is left alone by the rest of his pack, because they turn their backs on him. “But we have understood that you were not here.” After Q tries to explain that the coming herd is a group of rhinoceroses, not dinosaurs, he is turned away by his pack, feeling more alone than ever from the fact that there are no dinosaurs, and now no pack to stay with.

Response to Meriam's post

I saw this post from Meriam's blog and I think that it's FUNNY!

A clear example of this would be The Little Mermaid. The little Mermaid was written by Hans Christian Anderson was definitly not about a mermaid who lived happily ever after with a prince. In fact the adaption was the same up until Ariel came to the surface. Ariel had trouble communicating with the prince and therefore he never loved her and married another lady. In order to return to see she had to kill the prince, but out of guilt of commiting such a horrific act she killed herself. Crazy right!

           I have three younger siblings who watch nothing but these kind of movies, so 90% of the time the tv is playing these movies. They have been watching these movies for 5 years now, so you can imagine how bored I am of seeing and listening to that movie, or any of those kind of movies in general, so I try to humor myself during some of the parts. Next time they're watching it, I'm going to think about Ariel literally being a backstabber. Hehehe.
           Another similar thing to this is in Pochohantas. I learned this in 5th grade history, she was about 12, and that blonde guy was 30 ish. She would have married him too! But then that retard got shot and died, and she married some other guy.I don't think she even knew that blonde guy was dead. It was a guy named Oglethorpe, I think. (Who names their son that?!) In the movie, I think the blonde guy lived and he and Pochohantas had the whole happily ever after...thing.
          I think Aladdin was originally a book. I read one that was made before the mivie and instead of him having only 3 wishes, he had an infinite amount. How cool is that? So in the beginning of the story, this hobo pretended to be his uncle and tried to get the lamp, but somehow Aladdin got it, and the first few months he had the lamp, he asked for food. If I had infintie wishes, I would wish for my favorite foods everyday.

Pizza

           Well. I don’t really know what to write about or what to take about, so I’ll just make it up as I go along. My sister said I should write about pizza(that’s real specific, couldn’t get better details). So maybe I’ll do that. I think one of the best pizza places I’ve ever been to is Amici’s so if you see it, immediately plan a time to go there, cause their pizza is awesome! The pepperoni they put on the pizza kind of resembles a cup, and you can sprinkle Parmesan cheese or pepper and it tastes so good. So go there.

I think the worst is Linguini’s. It’s down by the Alameda Theater, so if you see it, don’t go there. Don’t say “Ooh let’s go to that pizza place, I’ve never been there before!”, because you’ll only be disappointed. The only thing that I ever will like is the arcade the they have [but last time I checked half of the games were out of order (big surprise)], because I won a something in the claw machine. A bunch of other times I got tricked in a way from the machine because I kept putting coins inside it, but the game wouldn’t start. It was always after I put the coins in that I asked someone and they said it was out of order, but they never got around to putting an out of order sign on it (yeah, they just never had the time).

The main reason I hate it is because they always put something in the tomato sauce or whatever that always made me really sick (found that out the hard way). I couldn’t eat it at all. Even when I got a little mini pizza, after the first piece, I pushed my plate forward and stuck with my soda. Later on, when I got really smart (my sister was always finding ways to trick me into doing something, I learned from my mistakes) I figured out a little strategy where I would drink all my soda and eat lots of garlic bread, so I only ate one piece, which wasn’t that bad, and that satisfied me and my appetite. So don’t go to Linguini’s, go to Amici’s.

Thoughts on Vic's Debate Statement

So. This is Vic's opening statement on medical marijuana. And I disagree with it...for the most part anyway.

We believe marijuana should be a medial option for “medical reasons”. We believe con is wrong and can’t beat us because people with medical problems need it to treat the pain. Joycelyn Elders, MD, former US Surgeon General, wrote that medical marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, and the “symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS -- or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day.” We believe that if medical people need the drugs to feel better or normal then they are able to recover with it, though it may be just a little addicting. If taken too much.this stuff can relieve many symptoms of stress and pain and can  be beneficial in many lives. Should Terminally ill people suffer if they are about to die, or should they be allowed comfort? you decide.

One thing that I disagree with is that when Vic says ‘though it may just be a little addicting’. It is very addicting and sometimes people get arrested for taking marijuana, die from overdose or die from getting in a cause-and-effect chain reaction from the overdose. The ultimate cause of this is addiction to it. If it weren’t so addicting, then half of the people who died from the cause of it would just stop taking the marijuana and not die. The other half would probably keep taking it for whatever other reason, probably out of being bored or not caring. Or people who are suicidal. Anyway, it is addicting, so people keep taking it, and they die from it.

    Another point I disagree with is the part about letting people get the “sick bed” wish of taking marijuana. Well what if they could live, but they have to take a different medication, and taking marijuana would kill your body? Should the doctor/physician give it to them now? Better safe than sorry, there’s still the chance that taking the painful or disgusting medicine will save you, unlike the untrustworthy marijuana. It could be a decision between life and death. Wouldn’t it be better to die knowing that you tried, but the other medication didn’t work than not knowing whether you could have lived or not by not taking the marijuana?

Vic also says that marijuana is less toxic than most drugs that physicians prescribe. This ties back into the whole addiction thing in the first paragraph. It may be less toxic than something else. Marijuana may be, for example, 30% toxic and some other thing, which isn’t addicting at all, is 40% toxic. If you take it just one time on one day, then yes by the end of the day, you be better off with the marijuana. But what happens if you take the marijuana 7 times in a week, when you’re only supposed to take it once a week? Which medication are you better of with now?

    Food for thought.

Illegal Immigration Rebuttal

I looked at this quote from Devin's point of view about the Illegal Immigration Debate

Illegal immigrants do not pose a threat to the American government. They help support it by paying taxes and thus, keeping the economy healthy. They also take jobs that the American people don’t want.

 This statement is not true for many reasons. Illegal immigrants don't take jobs that Americans don't want, they take the only jobs that America can offer. The number of jobs greatly outnumber the amount of people in the United States. We already have enough homeless people without illegal immigrants coming in and stealing them. People are trying to get jobs so they can take care of themselves and, if they have one, support their family. They won't care if they like that job or now. What matters is the money they get for working so they won't die of hunger, thirst, or lack of health.
Another thing wrong with this thought is that Devin said illegal immigrants would help support America by paying taxes and benefiting the economy. The opposing debaters might not be aware of this, but some employees of different jobs are getting paid less than they usually get. Some workers have even gotten their payments cut in half. Just because they pay taxes doesn't mean that the taxes will automatically make America rich and give it the greatest economy ever. People would have to keep working to get more money to pay for taxes and keep paying for them. This is why illegal immigration must cease.

Illegal Immigration Class Debate

The United States of America is currently going through very difficult times, and it is becoming harder then ever to find an occupation. The main root of this problem is illegal immigration.  The only solution to this problem is that we should worry about our own citizens survival before we worry about giving jobs to people from over the border.  As we speak, more and more people are crossing our southern border and stealing job opportunities from Americans. In California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, there is very little control over who enters the country, and who leaves the country.  We need to step up the security right away to ensure that all Americans have a fair shot at getting jobs, and the population does not overwhelm the availability of them. We already have enough homeless and unemployed people in America without more people coming here.
    We can easily compare this situation to America’s relationship to China, we pay them billions of dollars for cheap labor, and guess what happens?  We now are in debt with China for these billions of dollars, and many American factory jobs disappear.  This is the exact same thing that is happening with immigration, just on a more individual scale.  Immigrants come to America looking for work, they offer to do our jobs for less, they get hired and take the place of American workers.  We have to learn from our mistakes and put an end to illegal immigration before it gets out of hand. If nothing happens, and we allow illegal immigrants to come, then the population of the United States will overflow, and probably half of America would be full of homeless people. If that happens, then there would be a lot more murdering and stealing over food and money.
    The best way to deal with this problem is to send federal troops to assist the Border Patrol. Right now there is simply not enough security down there and we need to do do something about it quickly, or else there would be no order whatsoever there.  6,000 federal troops would definitely contribute to our numbers, as well as make regulations on how things are done by the border patrol. That way, less illegal immigration will take place. With no government regulation, the border patrol does can get immoral, inhumane, and out of hand very fast. This would also help control the vigilantes to, and  with the government close by, they definitely won’t try to get away with some of the things they do now.
    This issue of illegal immigration is much more serious then we think, and must be dealt with head on as soon as possible. Otherwise, we face the downfall of the United States.