Nowhere

I really enjoyed reading these texts. I mostly enjoyed reading News From Nowhere. It is a little hard to start reading a text not from the beginning and skipping over chapters. However, I believe the stranger just ended up in England and he is noticing the people there since everything has changed. This new England seems really cool. The people seem pretty educated and there are no schools in place, which is pretty cool. The people can speak several languages and some of the dead ones too. Also, "kids" don't have to start working until 21, which is nice since I started working WAY before that. One of my favorite things that we read is when the guy went to the store and two little kids helped  him. Plus, he didn't pay for anything.

I believe the guy's name is Dick, but when Dick told the stranger about how there is no laziness. I though that was pretty funny, seeing as how majority of people are lazy now. The disease is called "Idleness, because they were the direct descendants of those who in the bad times used to force other people to work for them — the people, you know, who are called slave-holders or employers of labour in the history books. Well, these Idleness-stricken people used to serve booths ALL their time, because they were fit for so little. Indeed, I believe that at one time they were actually COMPELLED to do some such work, because they, especially the women, got so ugly and produced such ugly children if their disease was not treated sharply, that the neighbours couldn’t stand it. However, I’m happy to say that all that is gone by now; the disease is either extinct, or exists in such a mild form that a short course of aperient medicine carries it off." I really enjoyed all of this it is filled with humor and truth. There are so many people who are lazy and to live in a world where there is no laziness!!! Omg I would love it. I think that really sells me on these Utopia's, where everyone works.

The other part that follows that I enjoyed and thought humorous as well is: But the old man broke in:
“Yes, all that is true, neighbour; and I have seen some of those poor women grown old. But my father used to know some of them when they were young; and he said that they were as little like young women as might be: they had hands like bunches of skewers, and wretched little arms like sticks; and waists like hour-glasses, and thin lips and peaked noses and pale cheeks; and they were always pretending to be offended at anything you said or did to them. No wonder they bore ugly children, for no one except men like them could be in love with them — poor things!” This was really funny because the author is making more humor about slavery and history, but in a good way.

I also enjoyed how Dick and his love, Clara, were able to divorce and then rekindle their relationship WITHOUT getting a court involved. There was no need for bringing other people into the relationship because the problems go from love to about who gets who. It needs to all be focused on the couple and nothing else. A year or two later, Dick and Clara are able to get back together. I think this is a policy we should adopt because our system just seems to have failed all of us. We have so many problems with our policies that we end up focusing on property and the tangible things, which aren't that important. What is important is why or why not the relationship did not work.

Rules, Rules, Rules. Oh and more Rules

My initial reaction to this reading was that there's no way I'm gonna understand any of this, but now that I've actually taken my time to read it. It was sort of boring, but I liked it. There are so many rules. Rules to Rules to Rules.

But I think the just of the whole text was that you must submit yourself to God. Your whole self. You own nothing. It is all God's. Everything you must do you must do it for God with God in mind. You must also ask the Abbot/Abbess. Even they must use counsel sometimes. I am assuming from this text that the best kind of person is a God fearing man. The text even states that the Abbot himself should do all things in the fear of God... he will have to render an account of all his decisions to God, the most just Judge.

Another thought was that this text is like a day by day rules and regulations list of how to live by God. St. Benedict thought of EVERYTHING and how to do it. Like I said before: lots and lots of rules, even for the sick, which to me is crazy.

Did anyone actually read Chapter 4, What Are the Instruments of Good Works????? Well I did and the list is freaking crazy. Do not murder, do not steal, to bury the dead, visit the ski, love fasting, relieve the poor, clothe the naked, help in trouble, prefer nothing to the love of Christ, don't get mad, don't hold grudges. AHHHHHH. Its so much. How can anyone remember all of these things? Oh, I know. Because women have certain times of the day during certain times of the year to read. We must always read and when reading time is over, we can sit on our beds and be still OR read. We just cannot disturb the others from sitting still. This is absolutely ridiculous. There is nothing wrong to live a life by God. But to live this life described in this text????? Oh, hell no. (Sorry God). That's not gonna happen. Well, I'm sure there were people who did, because those people are described in chapter 1. There are four different types of monks. The first is the best and its the life that is described in the rest of the reading. The second type, Anchorites/Hermits, are okay. The third type, Sarabaites, are described as detestable, so they ain't shit. And the fourth kind, Gyrovagues, ain't shit either. The last sentence of the chapter says: Passing these over, therefore, let us proceed, with God's help, to lay down a rule for the strongest kind of monks, the Cenobites. Is that what the rest of the 42 chapters are? Just A rule???? How about a whole bunch of freaking ruleSSSSSSSSS.

After I read this whole text and thought about this piece of work. I realized who in their right mind would take their time to actually write this??? Who says that these are the right ways to live their life??? Did he get a vision from God? I highly doubt that. Did he get counsel and a whole bunch of abbots get together with their brothers and wrote this work? I don't get it, but would like to know why. Knowing what class is like, I'm not sure if my question is going to be answered. I would hope so though.

Power! Well, Justice and Injustice.

So I don't know about anyone else, but when I first started reading this piece I was kinda confused. Probably because we started in the beginning of a paragraph. However, I enjoyed this text. I thought it was very amusing. I am confused about who is saying what, but I think I got the whole jist of the read...I think.

So I just went back to the beginning and reread it. A few sentences before we were to start tells us the point of this reading. The point is about what justice and injustice are and the benefits of each. Which one is better than the other. So to determine justice of a man; they are going to create justice of a city and talk about it on a larger scale then on a smaller scale. It is stated that "If we could watch a city coming to be in theory, wouldn't we also see its justice coming to be, and its injustice as well?"

Their creation of this city is funny. The things they want and don't want and change. At first they start building a city with just four or five people, but then they both agree upon the fact that people should only do one job that way they will excel at that one job rather than doing shitty jobs at multiple things. For example, one man can be a farmer, but he cannot build his own tools because he may fuck up at farming. So, they decide to have a city so large that they may have to take neighboring lands by force to accommodate everyone. But then they later start talking about dogs, they say it is natural to be two things at once. A dog can be nice towards people it knows, but mean to people it doesn't.

I also enjoyed reading about some other changes they wanted to make. They said that they young are very impressionable, which is very true, so they didn't want certain stories to be told to them. If people wanted to hear certain stories that were no longer popular there would be a very expensive price to hear them. Nothing bad should be told about gods. Gods are good people and can do no wrong. Those are just some of the things that were said. They said they would talk to Homer and have him change his poems.

What really interests me is to have this much power!!! I know they are being this particular to create a city so they can understand more about justice. But what if they really were creating a real life city? I wouldn't live in their city myself, but to be able to pick and choose over what is going to be read and not read and told and not told. This much control is amazing. I would love to be able to do this stuff. I wouldn't really care that much about the poems and stuff because I think that in order to really really cherish the good, there must be some bad. But if I could create a real life city that would be freaking amazing. (I know I already said it, but...) I would probably be the happiest person in history.

 

Making the World a Better Place

If I could change one thing in this world, it would be to lessen the amount of animal and animal by products that we eat and use as a whole. Humans use more animal by products than what we realize. So, not only do we eat them, but we also slaughter and abuse them for clothes, makeup, jewelry, beauty products, etc. Animals have no rights and are being abused for many human needs. For example, why should we do lab testing on animals? They have no choice and they have no need for our products.

I'm not trying to make people vegan or vegetarian but I think people should be more thoughtful when they eat. Even small changes help. How about eating more plants and vegetables? Less meat? I'm going to add some fun facts that I hope everyone will take the time to read.

• According to the United Nations, raising animals for food (including land used for grazing and land used to grow feed crops) now uses a staggering 30 percent of the Earth’s land mass. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals, and according to scientists at the Smithsonian Institution, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed worldwide every minute to create more room for farmed animals.

• Raising animals for food is grossly inefficient, because while animals eat large quantities of grain, soybeans, oats, and corn, they only produce comparatively small amounts of meat, dairy products, or eggs in return. This is why more than 70 percent of the grain and cereals that we grow in this country are fed to farmed animals.
  It takes up to 13 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of meat, and even fish on fish farms must be fed up to 5 pounds of wild-caught fish to produce 1 pound of farmed fish flesh.

• It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons. You save more water by not eating a pound of meat than you do by not showering for six months!

• According to Greenpeace, all the wild animals and trees in more than 2.9 million acres of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil were destroyed in the 2004-2005 crop season in order to grow crops that are used to feed chickens and other animals in factory farms.

• There are no meaningful federal guidelines that regulate how factory farms treat, store, and dispose of the trillions of pounds of concentrated, untreated animal excrement that they produce each year. This waste may be left to rot in huge lagoons or sprayed over crop fields; both of these disposal methods result in runoff that contaminates the soil and water and kills fish and other wildlife. The concentration of parasites, bacteria, and chemical contaminants in animal excrement can wreak havoc on the ecosystems affected by farm runoff and can sicken people who live near these farms.

• The EPA reports that chicken, hog, and cattle excrement has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states. When 25 million gallons of putrid hog urine and feces spilled into a North Carolina river in 1995, between 10 million and 14 million fish died as an immediate result.


• In West Virginia and Maryland, scientists have discovered that male fish are growing ovaries, and they suspect that this deformity is the result of factory farm runoff from drug-laden chicken feces.

• When the cesspools holding tons of urine and feces get full, factory farms frequently dodge water pollution limits by spraying liquid manure into the air, creating mists that are carried away by the wind. People who live nearby are forced to inhale the toxins and pathogens from the sprayed manure. In addition, according to a report by the California State Senate, “Studies have shown that [animal waste] lagoons emit toxic airborne chemicals that can cause inflammatory, immune, irritation and neurochemical problems in humans.”

Each one of those bullet points came from an article on peta.org http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/meat-wastes-natural-resources/

How would I implement my plan? I'm still not exactly sure. It would be mostly political. Instead of showing those really sad animal rescue commercials with the sad music that everyone changes the channel to. I would start playing really sad factory animal commercials. Has anyone ever seen one of those videos on Peta? If you can't see how your food is being treated before you eat it, then you shouldn't be eating it? People should know where their food is coming from and what exactly is in it. The media can have a huge impact on how society views subjects. I would also need a few congressmen to get on board. If I could get Michelle Obama, that would make a huge impact. A few laws would need to get passed; each county can only have 100 animals killed each month. The animals must be from farms in the area and must live a long life; 2/3 of its life expectancy.

My idea would help the world become a better and healthier place to live. People's lifestyles would improve, people would lose weight (especially in America), there would be less carbon dioxide in the air, less toxic  chemicals every where, less animals, less overall suffering.

Watch the video: There is a link to it as well.

http://bcove.me/rvxwhluk