Saturday, June 21, 2008

My 10 favorite rap songs.

My 10 favorite rap songs are all on one album,by one artist and that is Nas. This album to me is the foundation on which real rap music was built on.

The Genesis
N.Y. State of Mind
Life's a Bitch.
The World Is Yours
Halftime.
Memory Lane
One Love
One Time 4 Your Mind.
Represent
It Ain't Hard to Tell

Thomas Jefferson

I like Thomas Jefferson because he always had something smart to say. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from Thomas Jefferson.

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.
Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching
Power is not alluring to pure minds.

Research Paper on Abortion

Abortion
In the world we live in today people are always looking for an easy way out of their problems, and for many people abortion is a way out of their problems. What is Abortion? According to the New York Times abortion is

“The expulsion of the products of conception before the embryo or fetus is viable. Any interruption of human pregnancy prior to the 28th week is known as abortion. The term spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage, is used to signify delivery of a nonviable embryo or fetus due to fetal or maternal factors, as opposed to purposely induced abortion. Therapeutic abortion is an induced abortion performed to preserve the health or life of the mother.”
Abortion only serves as an option only in the most extreme circumstances. Just because a parent or couples aren’t fit to care for a baby doesn’t mean that have the right to kill that baby. Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle saw abortion only as a way to control the population. To me it is surprising that even these great thinkers didn’t see the evils of abortion. Back then under Roman law, regulation of abortion was based on the decision of the head man in the family. In those days men were seen as smarter and wiser then women but believe that no man or woman has the right to decide who lives and who dies. Under present Roman Catholic doctrine abortion is unacceptable in any circumstance. In 1930 Pope Pius said that “Even if the life of the mother is threatened by giving birth, abortion is unjustified.” According to the Bratanica Encyclopedia.
I believe that abortion should be illegal because no human person has the right to decide whole lives and dies. I believe this because we are all equal, no matter what age, race, or gender. So what gives us the right to decide the fate of an unborn baby? Abortion is just another way for just saying murder and if we don’t accept murder in the street how can we accept it in a doctor’s office? All over the world we fight wars and set up different police forces to protect and preserve life and it just so shocking that very few people speak out on abortion. “To some abortion is just a way to escape the responsibility of taking care of a child”. Smith, Rick A (Publication Date of Journal). Many people mostly women believe that abortion is a private and personal decision. What they do with and their bodies is there own business. And I truly agree that women should have that right but when defenseless babies are being killed it becomes a matter of public concern. “By allowing abortion to go on in the United States we are making it seem more acceptable in the world’s eyes”. According to Greenly, I. (1980) “How abortion has damaged America.”
It is hard to step aside and ignore what is going on with abortion especially when there is already so much else going on the world. Many people feel that enough is enough and is about time we change the world we live in
In conclusion in my abortion should be illegal. I think men and women have to take more responsibility to avoid pregnancy. Men should use condoms or women should take pills so that abortion is not even a factor. Abortion has one purpose which is to destroy life. Life is priceless so why should allow people to destroy it.

Obama

As I watch tv it is becoming clear that Obama will be our next president. I don't know if that is a good thing for us or a bad thing for him. I heard something on the radio the other day about Obama should be extra carefull as the elections get closer because his life could be in danger. This guy on the radio was saying how everytime someone gets popular and talks about bringing change in the way the governement is run that person is usually killed. People like Martin Luther King, John Lenon, JFK, and Malcom X just to name a few. I think he should be carefull because history has a way of repeating itself.

Lakers Lost???

I can't believe the Lakers lost to the celtics. The celtics are a good team but they are not better than the lakers. The last game was just a blow out. The lakers lost because they gave up before the game even started. I never seen a blowout like that in a finals game. The celtics are my favorite team in the east, so im happy Ray Allen,Kevin Garnett,and Paul Pierce finally got their first rings. They each have 10 years plus in the league so i guess its about time they got one.

Time

Time moves so slow when your bored. I hate being bored beacause nothing gets done. You think of everything that you can do, but you find yourself to lazy to even do any of those things. Being bored to me is like being a prisoner of your own mind and there is nothing you can do to escape it .Even if you find something to do all it is a distraction from the fact that time is always moving. No matter how you spend your time it gets spent. That is why I laugh when people i know say time is money. I always shake my head and say" no time is time because once time is spent theres no getting it back."

My Favorite rapper

My favorite rapper is Nas. I like Nas because his style is unique. There are so many rappers right now but only a few grow and become better, Nas is one of them. Rap music today is mostly garbage. For the most part everything sounds the same.Everyone is talking but there not saying anything. I like Nas because when he raps the things he says has meaning and you can use to apply in your life. He doesn't rap about money,cars, and jewlery he raps about real life. He has been rapping for almost 15 years now and he is only getting better and better.For someone that dropped out of school when he was in the 8th grade he is pretty smart.

The way it is

The world is the way it is because of greed. One day i was talking to this older guy I work with and he started to tell me his reason why the world is the way it is today. He told me money is the root of all evil and the greed is what fuels the fire. If people just cared a little but about other people the world would be a completly different place. I thought what he was saying made alot of sense. I looked at my own life and I couldn't really remember the last time I did something good that only benefited someone else.It is just like he said "we need another we are the world song or something".

2012

Everybody is saying the world is going to end in 2012 but i just dont believe that. Every couple years people say the world is going to end. I think half of the people in the world are secretly suicidal. Why do people want to believe the world is going to the end? I haven't seen enough facts to believe it. My grandmother always said if you look hard enough for something you will find it and i think that is whats going what this 2012 theory. People find the smallest fact and thats enough for them to believe it. The only thing i really believe in is that if you dont believe in somthing you will fall for anything.

The Status of Women in the 20th Century

The Status of Women in the 20th Century
The 20th Century marked the greatest changes in the World’s history. Changes that affected the way people lived their everyday lives. There were advancements in technology, education, social status and equality. But with all this good there is always the bad. And the bad of the 20th Century was the plague of wars. There were about thirteen different wars fought in this century including World War 1, World War 2, Korean war, and Vietnam just to name a few. The results of just these wars are about 240 million deaths. While men were off fight in these wars women’s roles greatly changed .Throughout the world’s history women have been playing a game of tug a war with their equality with men. When they make advancements and start gaining they slowly end up where they started. For example the roles women played in both World Wars.
Before World War 1 most women just worked in there own homes doing duties like cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the children, although some women worked outside the house. These women that took jobs outside their homes had jobs working in factories weaving yarn and some took jobs in other families homes maintaining their households. Women taking the jobs that men once did changed the social status of women everywhere. When World War 1 began in 1914 there were many open jobs because most men were over seas fighting. As a result women began working in office building and mass production factories. In these factories women were assembling planes, guns, ammunition, bombs and other military equipment. The mind set of women in 1914 were much different than women of today.
I am sure most women were happy with working inside their homes but the women who wanted to work like their husbands didn’t because they knew that it wasn’t acceptable so they just bit their tongues. So when war broke out it isn’t that these women woke up and just decided they wanted to work, they had to. They had to work to support their families. By women taking part in the work force that helped stabilize the economy. Since women were not allowed to serve in the army many women became nurses to aid the troops. By World War 2 women were allowed to join the army. By 1944 there were about 2 million women working in factories all across the United States. At this time women could basically hold any job a man could. About 350,000 American women fought in World War Two. American women also formed groups to aid the army by not actually fighting but by performing other services to help them like the WAC (Women's Army Corps).
About 150,000 American women were in the WAC during World War II. They were the first women besides nurses to serve in the Army. The only reason why the government allowed women join the war because they were short on soldiers. A lot of the male soldiers didn’t even want the women there. They didn’t think women could deal with the pressures of war. Some soldiers didn’t want women in the army because they would take all the safe jobs, forcing some men to the front lines. But because of the roles women played the U.S was able to succeed in both wars.

My summer ended before it even started

My summer ended before it even started because of this accident. This accident has ruined everything for me. I cant eat, I can't sleep or even watch tv. I Keep thinking if i had done something small that day the accident would of never happened.If I had stayed at my friends house a minute longer, or if i had taken another road i could of avoided it. Its crazy to me how one little thing can have a major affect. I believe everything happens for a reason so only time will tell.

The day my world ended

On Wednesday I was at my friends house watching tv, when all on sudden my phone rang. It was my other friend asking me to do him a favor. He asked me if i could come pick him up from work. Since i had like two hours before class i said sure. So i start driving and I start approaching a red light so i switched lanes to get a turning lane, when all of sudden a big Nissan SUV turned right into me. I didn't even have the chance to react all i saw was my air bags explode and a bunch of white smoke. I thought i had died then the smoke began to clear and i saw this lady in the car that hit me with her cell phone in her hand. I'm not even mad at her beacuase accidents do happen, I'm just mad it happened to me.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Lakers Vs Celtics

Tonight it could all be over. The Lakers are playing the Celtics in the finals and if the Celtics win tonight they win the championship. I am a Lakers fan and i would hate to see them lose. My favorite player in the game is Kobe Bryant. Watching Kobe play is like watching Michael Jordan in his prime. I wont consider him better that Jordan untill he wins more championship rings.

A Place

In the end everything that we thought was important will be meaningless. Everybody we knew in our whole lives will be gone. Our friends, families,and enemies will be nothing but lost memories. It's a place we all will end up. A place where there is no going back or going forward. A place some accept and some deny.But theres no point telling you about this place because one day you'll see it for yourself.

When the Sun rises

When the Sunrises I know I'll feel better
Because tomorrow is a new day
A new day means a new start
A new life, a new earth
Yesterday is done and written in stone
But tomorrow hasn't been written
Because tomorrow is what we make it.

The Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle
If someone tells a lie enough times they themselves will start to believe the lie they started to be true. And that is what I think happened with the myth of The Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle is an area in the Atlantic Ocean where many people believe it to be an Invisible black hole on earth. There are many stories of planes, ships and people disappearing but most have been made up. But how the author put it many of these stories can easily be explained. “A number of the vessels that vanished without a trace were known to be at risk from structural failure” which logically explains why some ships were never seen again.
Before I read this excerpt on the Bermuda triangle I thought it was real because of all the different stories but I’ve come to realize don’t believe everything you hear. For example there is a story of Flight 19. Flight 19 was a training flight of fighter planes that went missing in 1945 while flying over the Atlantic. To this day the official report of what happened is listed as unknown. The pilot of the missing plane was known to have gotten lost during flights before. So it is very possible he landed somewhere else and died or crashed into the ocean. All these theories are logical but no one knows for sure. But to say it disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle only furthers the myth. Although there are stories that support the possibility that The Bermuda Triangle could exist. For example the disappearance of the USS Cyclops. This warship of about 300 men disappeared in 1918 after leaving Barbados. There is no explanation on this could of happened. To this day there has been no trace of ship or the bodies of the men.
In conclusion I choose this excerpt because it proved to me that many of the Bermuda Triangle stories weren’t true. I guess there is a possibility that it could exist but I would need more facts to really believe it.
U.F.Os
U.F.O’s are flying objects in the sky that can’t be identified. There have been U.F.O sightings all over the world. There have been thousands of sightings in the last century. Just because we don’t know what they are does that mean they are aliens? I thought people that claimed to have seen UFOs were just lying but after reading this excerpt I learned that President Jimmy Carter claimed to have seen one in the sky.
Jimmy Carter saw a U.F.O in Georgia in 1969. One night he was about to give a speech, someone in the crowd pointed out to him something in the sky. He looked up and saw something in the distance as bright as the moon. Then it started to change colors first blue, red and then back to white, which is funny to me because those are the colors of the American Flag. Than it slowly disappeared in the night. Carter and a dozen more people witnessed the U.F.O. Since this happened before he became president he said “One thing's for sure, I'll never make fun of people who say they've seen unidentified objects in the sky. If I become President, I'll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists.” If a one time president can accept the possibility of U.F.O why we are all so quick to dismiss the ideas that U.F.Os actually exists. Or is it possible that Carter and a bunch of his campaign supporters made up the whole thing for free publicity. There is no proof to support that nor is there any proof to support that they actually saw what they claim. But just because there is no proof doesn’t mean it’s not true.
In conclusion I like this excerpt because it shows different cases in which there is a possibility that U.F.Os can exist. When it comes to finding the truth in these stories it’s like pulling a needle out of the hay stack.
Night Invaders
We all have had night invaders at one point in our lives, maybe not to the extreme like some of these stories. I think most night invaders are really just dreams that we believe to be reality. I know we have all had dreams that seem so real that we wake up in cold sweats. Dreams are just a mixture of ideas left over from the time before we go to sleep. For example I only have bad dreams if I watch a scary movie I go to sleep.
I know that night invaders don’t really exist. I believe if someone is invading your room at night they are a living person trying to rob or kill you. Night invaders are in my opinion characters of a persons own imagination. I believe this because of self misdirection. Misdirection is simply what the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes. So if you force yourself to see and hear something that you know is not there you will soon believe it. Night Invaders are just extreme nightmares. Nightmares are just real fears that you have that come to life in your mind while you are asleep. I remember when I saw the exorcist for the first time I couldn’t sleep for three days. Thinking back on it today I realize that the movie didn’t make me scared I did that to myself. Scientist say that eating before bed causes nightmares because it increases the body's metabolism and brain causing nightmares.
In conclusion there are no ways to prevent having nightmares but people should try to distinguish there nightmares from reality. Because of misdirection what the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Two Roads

Two roads diverge in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference. The road has made a small difference in my personal life but not in the world. When I was younger I used to be scared of getting on a plane because I thought it would crash because the pilot would fall asleep at the controls. I would have never imagined that I had to worry about it being hijacked and being used as a weapon. But as we get older and change so does our fears.
As I get older and the world becomes a scarier place to live, nowadays there are so many things to worry about. So many dangers and fears we have to live with. The media just makes it worse. For example if you were to watch the 11 o’clock news for week I guarantee that ninety percent of it is bad news, crime, lies, and scandal. If we are always living in fear that what is the meaning of life.
In the dangerous world we live in today, people find comfort or solace in their faith, but that can also be an extreme and create fear. I think religion has and will continue to play a big role in the world. People question their faith because they ask “Why God would let this happen?” By losing our faith, we are making things worse. I do believe the proverb that “Someone who doesn’t stand for something will fall for anything. To have faith means we have to believe.
The world is in crisis. To change the world would take unity, peace, and understanding. Although it would be impossible for one man to change the whole world by himself, if I could change the world, I would. When it comes to my world, I can make a difference.
For some reason everyone thinks the next president of the United States is going to save the world. I don’t believe there is anything any of them can do. Every time I see these debates all I hear are words. None of them are about action and have a real plan to bring change. I think the reason the world is the way is today is because of greed. Everyone just thinks about themselves and what is in it for them. For example the gas companies, do they really need billion dollar profits?
Some people say that we can create a new reality if enough people believe. We can “manifest” our intentions if we think we can. And only we as people can decide whether we can make the world a better and safe place to live. Unity, peace and understanding equal change. Nasir Jones once said “The world is yours” which doesn’t mean one man owns the world, but we each own a piece and we have a responsibility to do our part.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Paper 2

Poetry by definition is the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts, but I don’t see any of that. The only time I read poetry is when I have to. So to do this assignment I forced myself to pick two poems that I liked and easily picked two I disliked. I Chose “At the end “and “Eclipse” as the poems I liked, and “This is just to say “and” Decade” as the poems I disliked.
I liked “At the end “and “Eclipse” because they actually made sense. “At the end” is a poem written by Ed Meek. This poem is about someone with an old man that is dying in his/her presence. I like how Ed Meek describes how the man is slipping into his death. He uses a river as a symbol to show the transformation from life to death, and the man actually being in the water is his death. As the man is dying he is smiling because death is not something he fears so he plunges in. The Eclipse is a poem written by Richard Eberhart. I liked this poem because I don’t think it has anything to do with a real eclipse. I think the poem is really about hope. The eclipse is hope and the darkness he refers to is everything around us that troubles us. When the man is surrounded by all the darkness, and he looks up in the sky and sees the light he realizes even being in the darkness he knows there is something good out there.
The two poems that I chose that I disliked were “This is just to say “and” Decade”. I disliked these two poems because they didn’t make much sense at all. I understand that some poems that have hidden messages but after reading them several times I still don’t see them. After reading these poems I have come to the conclusion that many poems are pointless. These poems are just words, words with no real meaning.
In conclusion I don’t like poems. I feel if you have something to say you should just say it. The author shouldn’t write his/her message in code. If the author doesn’t make their message clear to the reader, what was the point in writing it?

Sunday, June 8, 2008

The Break down

The Break down
My mind is always moving never slowing down. But i'm still here. I should be some where no man has ever been before. But i still can't walk through the door. The Present is what you get and the past is what makes the man. But is my future good, I can't tell.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Poetry

Poetry
No Big Words
No Depth
No Hidden messages
Just Poetry

Friday, June 6, 2008

My Last day

My Last Day

On my Last day what will matter.
On my last day who will be there
MY friends or my enemies.
On my Last day who will care.Will I care ?
In my life there are too many questionsand not enough answers.
The only thing i do know is that when your born alone you die alone.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Looking out the window

I wish someone told me the truth about the world. We are always told the world is a kind and beautiful place, but i dont see that. But i just started to realize as time goes on the world becomes a worse place to live, but i guess we have no choice to live here. Nowadays there are so many things to worry about . Alot of people say the world is going to end in 2012 I laugh because im not sure if thats suppose to be a good or a bad thing.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Stranger Than Fiction

Yesterday in class i couldn't really think of anything in my life that was stranger than fiction .This mourning I woke up and i heard a real strange story from my friend Mike. He called me and told me that he was going to Buffalo to pick up his new car. But he overslept and missed his flight. So his only option was to take another flight from JFK to Chicago and from Chicago to Buffalo. I thought it was strange that he would have to take a flight to leave New York just to get to New York.I dont know how that made sense to the people at the airport.

Monday, June 2, 2008

My first blog

This is my first time writing on a blog and i really dont know what to write. I took this class thinking it would be something real simple and easy but now im starting to realize nothing in life is simple and easy. I thought this english class would just be simple like reading a couple chapters in a book and writing a one page report but i was wrong. I really dont like to write but this has been fun i'll be sure to write more next time.