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Harrison Bergeron

|by Kurt Vonnegut (follow up's ?)

Life in Vietnam would be perfect if everyone were totally equal.  Do you agree or disagree?  Explain your answer in complete sentences.

There wouldn't be any societies that are perfect without some supportive, special and intelligent people. Therefore, I disagree with this concept. Competitions are necessary for a country to grow and develop, especially a developing country like Vietnam. Why people compete each other, because they want to have more money than others, and that is the motivation which make a country develop. However, if everybody is equal, is there going to be any competitions exist? The reason why our human society have a modern life like today because in the past, there had been so many competitions between talented, smart people, followed that are series of new inventions that bring the human society to a new level of technology.

You are designing a society in which everyone is equal. What are the laws?

- No one is smarter than anybody else. (wearing earphones that send noise every 20 seconds)

- No one is more beautiful than anybody else. (wearing masks)

- Quick and flexible people are required to carry heavy things.

- If anybody try to take off their equipments, go to jail for 2 years.

- Everybody only has $1500 per month to live.

- Companies are all under control and required to pay taxes every month (pay taxes until every companies leftover with $5000).

- Everybody only  wear clothes the government give (with the same price).

- Each household can only have 2 cars and 2 motobikes.

- Children that born in the same day, month and year study together.

- Whoever believe in racism would go to jail for 1 year

What would you do to help people who were less capable mentally, physically, or socially to “catch up”?

In year 2081, technology is absolutely moderner than now, so it would not be that hard to create a machine that help people face problems with their intelligence, health or interactions. Or besides complicated machines, volunteered university students can open a free class only for those people. We can check their health every three months and invent medicines that are able to heal sickness. People like that need some encouragement from us so they can be brave when they socialize with other people.

What problems can you foresee that might come in a society with laws that force “equality for all”? How would you handle those problems?

There would be 3 groups of people, the low intelligent people, normal, and talented, intelligent people. The first two groups would please as what they have, but the third group would rebel against this concept. It would be very hard for the government to control because their rebellion group of people are mostly talented and smart and they would be the big threat. The only way the government can do about that is using force. The government can kill, punish or imprison rebel people. Another way is to persuade them to work in the government, so we can take advantage of their intelligent to rule the country.

Do you believe that total equality is possible, or would human nature make sure that some people would eventually dominate others?

Total equality has never appeared to my mind. It is human nature from 5 thousands years ago people fight each other to have power, divide into coutries, naturally form a human society like the one we are having. Despite every single citizens are all equal, a country itself is already unequal. Every country has its own government, the control of the government already reflects that it is nature that some people control and dominate others, otherwise where are all laws come from? 

In what situations have you felt similarly to any of the characters? What persons, places, or ideas from your own experience came to mind while you were reading this story? Try to list as least two examples.

When was in grade 4, I used to study with a student who had problems with his intelligence. Like the camera man in the story, he always had trouble figuring out which way should pictures look like. Everybody in my class can all write our own essay, but to him, he always wrote wrong spelling and no one can understand what is his essay about. I felt pity for him that when he was born, he did not have as good brain as normal people. The second person the remind me of the workman near my house is the beautiful ballerina. The ballerina was punished for being such a beautiful girl, well, this man only works for his food. Every time I go back home from school, I always see that man, under the bright, blindingly dazzling sunlight, he carries tens of cement bags, lays them on the sidewalk, next to a big construction. Whenever I see that man, I wonder myself, "Does that man have enough food to eat?"

Letter to GREAT MAMA

5 MUMMIES WALKING ON THE STREET :D

I took this picture so you guys can't really see me

Ivy's great moment

They were all look gorgeous, but who is missing???...

Here I was!!!! Tada, but played as Justine's horse

EW!! can't understand why my friends took this picture

YAY! I advertised for Yomost comp =)). JK, I was swimming at my cousin's house

My cousin took my glasses!!! Give it back to me gurl

Welll ya see?? I did have a great weekend :D, hope I got an A+ for the 'play outside' homework assignment :)

Mangareva, Pitcairn, and Henderson Islands

There are 2 main problems that Mangareva, Pitcairn, and Henderson islands had, they were:

• Civil War
• Unsustainable Development

Instead of having hereditary chiefs, which meant they would fight each other to get the position, Moreover, because the didn't use the resources wisely and unsustainably therefore people fought for food because foods are human basic needs. They overused and overgraded the lands for farming and deforestation, erosion are the consequences.
There are solutions they should have done to avoid those situations, there were:

• The first chief who ruled the island should have annouced that only his descendants could continue his career, no one else. If the rule was set up like that, it will create a more stable structure of society in the island.
• Instead of overused lands to farm, they should have taken the advantages of seafoods and use that as their main food. Or they should change to be vegetarians and then they wouldn't need to graze livestocks anymore and slow down the process of deforestation.

2nd 'Movember' 2010 Homework - Answer the questions on blog.

How does advertising influence consumption?

Everyday people turn on their TVs, go outside, surf the internet… they might see about 50 ads (that’s the number of ads I have counted so farJ). That tells you there are many companies; organizations… want to attract people to buy their products. Once they want their products to have high attentions and people to buy it, they would never show the bad side or negative side of their products. That’s why we always see and confused which choice should we make when we want to buy something because all the products seem to be perfect. When we see all the good sides, who is going to tell us about the bad sides? Because of the perfect masks like that, people would want to own those perfect products and obviously increase their consumption.

Do you think citizens are sufficiently informed about the sustainability of our consumption habits? If not, how can we become more informed about sustainability issues?

Habits are something that you don’t usually pay much attention of and do it as your routine. While we follow the habits, we don’t think lots about sustainability, about our next generations; we just don’t think that deep. To get people interested in thinking about sustainability, the government could tell us under advertisements, organizations, and social activities in order to send the messages about sustainability. If the advertisement of product we see everyday could attract people to buy the product by showing the good sides of it, why can’t the government get people’s attraction by showing the good sides of thinking about sustainability?

Do you think these advertising techniques influence what you and your friends purchase?

I think my friends do because advertisements have many ‘tricks’. To get people’s interest in their products, some of them use techniques such as celebrities, models… Because people all want to look good, be famous as celebrities and models so getting famous people to involve the ads could make people who admire that famous people to buy stuff that their idols use. For me, the reason why I don’t think it influence to me because I think kinda deeper. What I meant was companies that make contracts with famous people to involve in their advertisements are just actually business work (both sides earn money). Therefore introducing products through famous people’s statuses is just actually the famous people accomplishing their jobs.

Examples of Sustainable Development

1/ Solar energy heat up water or transform to electricity - never runs out.
2/ Save water by go to public swimming pool or wash cars less frequently.
3/ Social health care to take care of human's health.

Three Gorges Dam

The three gorges dam project brings the humanity to the greatest hydropower construction. Although, the project is unbalanced between providing energy for the country and causes human/environment interaction. First of all, the dam provides much electricity for China. The gorges dam provides 18,2 GW, as much electricity as a country like Vietnam uses. Coal is the main resource that China used to burn and take energy from. Burning fossil fuels negatively affects to the atmosphere of the Earth. Now, instead, people take advantage of the water flow to turn the turbines and generate electricity. Generating energy by hydroelectricity will be a friendlier way to exploit for energy. At the same time, building three gorges dam is also a human/environment interaction, and because the project is the world largest project in hydropower, meaning it affects really much to the environment. The species whose habitats are in the river, such as fish could die because of trash stuck inside the water in the upper part of the river. Human is also a part of this bad influence. Pollution in the upper part of the river may spread diseases. People may have to move because of the reservoir started to expand. As what people can observe, to meet the demand of electricity, the cost to pay is human’s own environment.

Immigration / Migration Essay

Rural people migrate to big, urban cities; this seems to be normal and ordinary for a developing country like Viet Nam. Therefore, my family found it easy to find a maid to look after our house. Our family maid, Mrs. Bich moved from her hometown to Ho Chi Minh City. This movement changed her, her sons, and her husband’s lives a lot. 

All the pull factors came to her when she had a phone call from a friend. Her friend said she could earn more money if she goes to big cities to find a job. There are tall buildings, a better life, a more modern life, and a life without working hard in the fields. Moreover, a push factor that made Mrs. Bich migrate is the land that she owned back in her homeland have been degraded, therefore it would easily cause her to fail in the crops season. At first, she couldn’t leave her family behind because she was afraid her children would not be well taken care of and her husband would have to do housework and take care of their children at the same time. 

After pondering on her decision, she made her first internal migration. As soon as she stepped off the bus, she was really surprised about the beauty of the city. Now, Mrs. Bich is also pleased with the income she gets every month by working in for my family, because she has never made more than five hundred thousand VND per month back in her homeland. 

Since Mrs. Bich has worked in my house, we have taken her for nights out with us quite a lot. She said in her hometown it doesn’t have steel bridges like those in Ho Chi Minh City, and she didn’t even know that there is a machine to do such things as playing DVDs and making food like DVD players and microwave ovens. Now, as her friend said she would have, she has a better life, she has new clothes, she travels many places she has never been before, and what pleases her most is her salary helps her husband and children a lot. 

However, she usually feels homesick and also cries of loneliness because she doesn’t interact with anyone except my family. She is always worried when she thinks of her children and her husband. Sometimes this causes her distractions while she's working. She finally comes up with a decision to move and settle her family in the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.

Global Warming and Desertification (study for quiz)

Global warming and desertification

GLOBAL WARMING

Definition:

The increase in temperature in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Causes:

-      Throw trash

-      Factories release smoke, chemical

-      Vehicles release smoke, poison gas

-      Burning fossil fuels causes he CO2 release into the atmosphere

-      Oil spill, wasting resources and killed sea animals’ habitat.

-      Wasting water by building buildings, swimming pools…

Effects of global warming:

-      Greenhouse effect

-      Climate change

-      Desertification

-      Sea level rises

Possible Solutions:

-      Turn off lights if they are not in use

-      Build swimming pools in our house to avoid dust mix with water so we won’t need to change water frequently.

-      Throw trash in trash bin

-      Recycle

-      Plant trees

Real world example

Polar ice caps melting

1.    Rising in sea levels. There are 5,773,000 cubic miles of water in ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, if all glaciers melted today the seas would rise about 230 feet, but it won’t happen in all at one.

2.    Melting ice caps will throw the global ecosystem out of balance. The icecaps are fresh water, when it melts, it makes the sea water less salty. Some of the steams would cool up the areas around north-east America and Western Europe. But it would stop some of other effects of global warming in that area.

3.    Temperature rising and changing landscapes in the Arctic Circle will endanger several species of animals. Only the most adaptable will survive.

4.    Global warming could snowball with the ice caps gone. Ice caps are white, and reflect sunlight, much of which is reflected back into space, further cooling Earth. If the ice caps melt, the only reflector is the ocean. Darker colors absorb sunlight, further warming the Earth.

Storms and flood

Economy consequences, storm and flood cause do billions of dollars in damage, diseases cost money to treat and control and conflicts. And many people lost there home, their family…

Warmer water and more hurricanes

1.    As the temperature of the ocean rose, the probably of the strong hurricanes will also rose. This happened in 2004-2005

2.    Every time the temperature increase by 5% for every 1*C (1.8 *F) rise in sea surface temperature.

3.    Summer heat warms the ocean’s surface and spurs Evaporation. As heat and moisture rise into atmosphere, billowing cloud, scattered showers, and thunderstorms form.

Spread of disease

When the temperature increases, the virus reproduced more and faster. Some of the insects carry disease back to the north in winter.

     Heat wave

          The deadly heat wave that swept across Europe in 2003, killing an estimated 35,000 people, could be the harbinger of an intense heat trend that scientists began tracking in the early 1900s. Heat waves not only make it seem difficult to body's function, they can be deadly as well. Extreme heat waves are happening two to four times more often now, steadily rising over the last 50 to 100 years, and they re going to be 100 times more likely over the next 40 years.

Vocabulary

-      Greenhouse effect: Observed heat from the Sun and then reradiated back toward

-      Greenhouse gas: Many greenhouse gases occur naturally, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.

-      Fossil issue: Resources that can burn to provide heat, such as coal, oil, petroleum, nature gas…

-      Desertification: The degradation of land when land becomes unproductive because it is affected by erosion, human…

-      Sustainable: Using resources in wasting ways

-      Carbon Dioxide: Oxygen + Compose of Carbon

-      Emissions: Gasses (CO₂) from transportation, factories released and go to the air.

-      Degraded: Reduced in quality and value (in this case, we talk about land become unproductive).

DESERTIFICATION

Definition:

The degradation of land when land becomes unproductive because it is affected by erosion, human…

Causes and Effect:

Human causes:

-      Overgraze: People allow animals to graze in a certain area split by fences without moving away. Animals hooves turn up the soil, make water easy to evaporate by wind.

-      Deforestation: People cut trees down; destroy forest without growing trees again make the land become unfertile.

-      Making wells: Plants can’t grow without water so people making wells to have ground water make the land unable to grow plants.

-      Mismanagement in irrigation: People let water evaporate wastefully which lead to the salinity in soil increase. Salinity in soil make it’s very hard for plants to grow

Natural causes:

-      Deforestations due to natural forest fires.

-      Sand storms sweep soil away, make plants hard to grow.

Possible solutions to desertification:

-      Surrounded plants by rocks to concentrate the amount of dew and keep plants’ moisture.

-      Plants tall trees to block wind because the wind blow soil away and it also blow dews away. Trees make the soil not easy to become arid because it provides water and nutrient into itself and the earth.

-      Use solar cookers to decrease the need of wood to cook.

-      Grow bushes in dunes’ feet to keep dunes stable and reduce the amount of sand blowing away.