Fighting in sports

Should fighting in sport be banned?

          
        Watching sport is a fun and entertaining, especially if there is some fist fight inside. Many of people who watches sport like hockey are expected to see a brawl once or twice in the game. Fighting in hockey makes the game more exciting to watch and fights is why so many people are attracted to watch hockey, but on the other side, fighting in sports has a very dark side. Fighting in sport is usually a fist to fist fight, mostly targeted on the head since it is the biggest target both physically and visually. When a person suffers a huge force to the head, they usually suffer a condition called concussion. Concussion is when the brain hits the side of the cranium. Usually this action damages the brain. When this happen people get nausea and will be prone to headache. Other side effect is nervous damage. The nervous damage is why concussion is dangerous to sport. Nervous damage causes depression which most of the time leads to suicide. In sports, fighting is still there is because the audience love it and the sports team have to keep it going to attract and not loose any customer. But fighting in sport is causing death to the player. Few years ago, three hockey players who were involve in a lot of fist fight during their career died. Usually they death is from suicide and/or alcohol/drug abuse. Asking the question, so is it necessary to ban it? If it was ban then the player have longer career span but the drawback is less people watching. If it wasn’t ban then it vice versa. In conclusion fighting should be ban or at least tightly control so ones favourite player can have a longer and better career span.

Wolf's problem

Should wolf be re-introduced into the wild?

           If you take a walk in a wood anywhere in world you won’t see many wild wolf. This scarcity of wolf is due to humans taken them out fearing they’ll harm them. In the past 20 years humans have started to understand wolfs, and knowing that they’re not that dangerous as they previously thought. So the question people is asking, should wolfs be re-introduced back in to the wild. There are some good and bad parts in these topics. First off, the wolf population isn’t very dense so it makes sense to reintroduce them back into the wild where they belong. Removing wolfs is such quantity from the wild is disrupting the food chains of the wild. The prey of the wolfs has grown in to a massive population due to lack of predator and this is starting to ruin the wild’s food chain. If the wolfs are reintroduce into the wild, the wolfs can tame the population on animals such as the deer. To add to the fact wolfs are actually helping those animals by only eating the sick and the old in the heard. Due to that if wolfs are reintroduce back into the wild food cycle can be balanced and animal population such as the deer can remains healthy. But considering the last point if wolfs are to be reintroduce back into the wild it might pose some threat. Wolf loves farms animals. If wolfs are to be reintroduce back into the wild they might prey upon farms animal and result of money losses. In conclusion wolf should be reintroduce back into the wild to balance out what the nature intend the wolfs to do.

Pitcairn Island's government

Since earlier I posted about the Mutiny of Bounty I got interested in an island of Pitcairn especially about it unique government. 

Pitcairn Island's Government

          

         Pitcairn can be said the smallest place with a democracy. Since Pitcairn is considered overseas territory to the United Kingdom, so it government consist some kind of democracy system that has the loyalty to the queen. The Pitcairn has governor which is the official that represents the queen. His office is located in New Zealand. The ruling council consist a mayor and a council. The mayor is in charge of the ruling council, but sometimes the council takes over that job. Like the  right now, where the tension between the council and the mayor is high. The council is responsible for almost everything in Pitcairn except defense. The Pitcairn council required the person must live in Pitcairn for three years and above 18 to vote. Running for an office must require a minimum of certain year living in Pitcairn. A new constitution has been offered and that will change the constitution of the 1970. The constitution are said to be more suited for modern life. 

Are you alone?

My worst nightmare

          When I was seven years old I encountered my worst nightmare, which involved in talking octopus and falling from great height. The dream started when I was in my house. As usual I climbed up to the fifth floor to find my sister. But instead seeing a normal scene, like my sister playing with her toy, I see her being captured by a weird looking octopus. The octopus has a black skin and a purple sucker. It has a grey skinny head and hair made out of fire. I was shocked! Then suddenly the octopus saw me and say “you can’t save her,” with a taunting voice. Then he pushes me off the stair. For some reason I ended up all the way in the basement. So since it was my twin sister in distress I decided to save her. So I climbed up the stair. The weird part is I didn’t walk up, I crawl up. What seem like forever and a pain in the back I finally reached fifth floor. The octopus seems like it was expecting me. He grabbed me with his long tentacle. During that I noticed my sister was gone. Before I can react the octopus extends its arm and threw me off the window. I fell and hit the ground. That is when I woke up. I woke up full with sweat and was scared pretty bad. With a scary and weird dream like that it is hard to forget.

Otzi

Click Picture for more information about Otzi the Iceman.

Another side of Columbus

The other side of Columbus

         
          As stated in history textbooks, Christopher Columbus in 1492 sailed the ocean blue. He was the one that discover the America, the person who colonized it first and who convinced Europe that the earth is round. This all is true. But the history textbook also said he was a kind person to his crew and the natives. But is that fact true? 

       Columbus is actually an atrocious man. First of all, he was not an honest man and lied to Queen Isabella. After the first voyage, Columbus told her that he found a lot of gold and spices on the island he found, asking for second voyage. In truth, he found no spices, and the only gold he saw were ornaments on people ears, neck etc. 

       Secondly, due to his ideology of finding gold, riches, and God, he acted cruelly to achieve his three goals. Columbus thought that every non-Christian go to hell; thus he wanted to convert the Natives to Christianity thinking that Christians have elite status in the world. He converted them by brute force forcing them to be baptised and to go to church. If they didn’t, they would have a dire effect afterward. But he took no pity in this, thinking that he is enhancing the natives’ life. On the gold ideology he was even worse. Due to his trip, he needed to pay back the money he owes to the Monarch of Spain, the people who sponsored him. When he reached the West Indies, he found no gold. He thought that he can get some gold by using the locals. So he used a cruel way to do this by forcing anyone fourteen years and older to find certain of amount of gold every day.  If they did, they would receive a bronze token. Any natives without the token were to have their hand cut off immediately. Any native who tried to advocate his rights was immediately suppressed and put down. Those who tried to escape were hunted down by dogs. This act razed many villages. This clearly shows that he is a flagrant person. 

 For the short supply of gold, he has an idea to replace that. Which is slavery. Starting the hundreds of years of slavery in North America. His acts bring a great deal of turmoil in the West Indies, and to add to that he is not even nice to his fellow crewmen. He will cut of his sailor ears if they start complaining . He also said that he will give put prize to anyone that saw land first. Someone saw it first, but he claimed that he sawed it first, thus taking away the prize.

         Columbus is a cruel man, but we shouldn’t strip out some of his title he accomplishes. Like he discovered America which brought a lot of positive thing. But we shouldn’t forget the cruel things he did. And how those cruel thing is still affecting now or recent past.

Mutiny!!

Myself I enjoyed reading about the mutiny of Bounty. This essay is about the court testimony of Bounty's captain, William Bligh.

Bligh’s Court Testimony

         Back during the day a mutiny is a crime for the captain during Bligh’s period. According to the rules back then, mutiny happened because the captain couldn’t watch over his crew. But the question is why the navy let Bligh off the hook. After studying some historical papers, there is an explanation.

         A letter was sent from Timor to the British Admiral written by Lieutenant Bligh. This letter described the mutiny aboard HMS Bounty, the voyage across the sea, and the landing in Timor. This letter stated that he was caught off guard while he was sleeping. This letter also stated that Christian was leading the mutiny. In Bligh’s second letter, he mentioned William Purcell to the court. William Purcell is a carpenter and is loyal to him. He proved that Bligh was actually a nice person instead a cruel hearted one. In that letter he stated that Purcell was ill-behaved but he never punished anything but a day in his cabin. He also stated that he did not mistreat his fellow sailors, and what will be 25 slashes punishment he only gave him a lock in a key.

         Through his letters and his testimony, Bligh said that he shouldn’t deserve the punishment. The easy way to say Bligh was stating that the crew rebel not because of him but because of the paradise Tahiti and what the Tahitian offered. 

         So under this, Bligh made the point that he was not a cruel captain, not cruel to his fellow sailor, and not responsible for this mutiny that Christian planned out to keep the crew in Tahiti because of the comfortable life there.

          In conclusion, the navy let Bligh go due to the amount of evidence supporting the fact that Bligh was not at fault for the mutiny. The navy could only let him go because of the lack of evidence against him. Due to this evidence, the navy sent a battleship to capture the mutineer. The capture mutineer was brought to court and two were set free and one is hanged, and Bligh went on to become a rear admiral and a sea captain.

A Thousands Splendid Suns Theme

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Theme

         
           A Thousand Splendid Suns explains the value of friendship. The two protagonists have such a great friendship that they will do anything for each other. Hosseini makes a good job presenting the theme perfectly by combining the theme with the story flawlessly.

         

          Friendship is part of the human life. We all got a least one friend. But friendship can also develops into something more, sometimes as close as a family relation. Hosseini introduces the theme very well. He starts off with two women that have different backgrounds. One is called Mariam the other one is called Laila. Mariam is an illegitimate child of a rich Herat businessman, while Laila is the educated daughter from a Kabul family. Mariam was married of to an abusive husband called Rasheed. After a lot of things happen Laila is married off to Rasheed too. This is when the theme is introduced. Mariam has a dislike on Laila at first. But after seeing that they have the same bad fate, they start to become friends. Then one day Rasheed is doing his usual beating on his wife, both of the women stand up a kills him. Mariam seeing her friendship with Laila tells her to escape Afghanistan to escape the crime. Mariam stood for Laila and was executed.

         In conclusion, friendship is a powerful thing. We should all value friendship. As Hosseini trying to tell us friendship is hard to get, but the reward is overwhelming. Friend can be from different background or race. We humans have the emotion ability to have friend. So valuing a friend is like valuing a family.

Fables

3 Fables’ comparison

          In most of the Aesop’s Fables, the morals are usually about greediness, hate, bravery, wise, loyalty, and others. The Aesop’s Fables all have a different twist and different situation, but the consequences of these stories are very similar. I think the Aesop’s fables do this because they are using many ways to tell these stories to children for them to behave. They use the same storyline with different characters and different plot to give more examples for children. Aesop’s Fables are anthologies that teach people-usually children- a lesson. They encompass morals, which teach children the consequences after the “bad things” they had done. Of the thousands of fables Aesop wrote, three fables had similar morals and storyline. “The Greedy Fox”, “A greedy woman”, and “The old woman and the physician” are three stories with the same morals. 

           The storyline of these three fables are all the same as their common moral. First, the character got greedy by whatever it wanted, either if it’s food, money, or valuables. At the end, they all got nothing which is their consequences. The stories are just a bit modified compared to other. In “The greedy fox”, the fox tried to squeeze into the hole where the piles of food is in the tree. When he did fit in, he ate up all the food. Since he was to fat from the food he was unable to get out because of his full stomach. In the “A Greedy Woman”, the woman wanted her hen to lay two eggs a day, so she fed the hen twice the amount of food. As a result, the hen got over weighted and was unable to lay any eggs. Lastly, in the “The old woman and the physician”, the old woman was blind. She asks a doctor to heal her blindness, and in return, she promised that when she is healed, she would pay him money. In the old woman’s house, there were many valuables. Every time the physician went there, he would help the old woman, and later would steal some of the valuables away. By the time she was healed, the house was empty. The physician claimed for his payment but the old woman refused, so he sued the old woman. When the judge asks the old woman why she refused to pay the physician, she simply replied, “This man declares that I am healed, but I must still have eye problems. Before I lost my sight I saw my house and everything is in it; but now, even though the physician says I am cured, I cannot see a single thing in my house.” With this, the physician ended up with no payment.

          In conclusion, the Aesop’s Fables are collected by many anonymous people and may have come from the same source. The three stories I had chosen, “The greedy fox”, “A greedy woman”, and “The old woman and the physician” have very close similarities, and may have once been from the same source. This might happen because the stories might have been spread among travelers who heard the story. They want to collect more stories and have more examples. If children see different examples of being greedy, they would also see the different examples of the consequences of being greedy.

Otzi the Ice man

Otzi the Ice man is a well known prehistoric mummy find in Italy near the Austria border. This writing is purely creative and I hope you like it!

Otzi the Ice man

          I was hiking up the mountain ready to meet the “people.” As a well-known hunter in my village, I, Otzi, have a reputation to keep up. I am famous and rich with food and that is why I got into this much trouble. I was clad with deerskin garments and a grass cape. I cursorily check my inventory, which included an axe for some firewood,  some equipment to build bows, some arrows when I finished my bow, a flint scraper for fire and a small knife to cut up meat and also for self- defense. I was prepared for anything. I sensed something would not go very well in my confrontation with the “people”. 

          
          It was a long and hard journey to find the “people” who are actually the Wizard Gorg and his men. They gave me the power to hunt and be the wealthy, a well-provided for person I am today. Thanks to wizard Gorg and his men, they gave me a drink that would make me strong. Apparently, I have to reward them with meat when I became successful. However, I didn’t fulfill the promise, so now they said that I have to meet them. I surmise that they’ll take away my power. Wish the meeting go smoothly.

         
           Everything happened like a blur. I didn’t know Gorg have hired men with weapons with him. I was agast when he broke our agreement. He clearly said no weapons! He is such a loser. It happens as I gingerly walk toward Gorg and his group and they said they have to take away my power. I said no and ran away. But then in my direction behind the boulder came men with bows and arrows. I still got my strength, so I ran like crazy. But apparently someone hit my shoulder with an arrow. The pain caused me to fall over the mountainside. After a few minutes, I could tell they were gone, but the arrow was still in my shoulder. I couldn’t bear the pain, and I lost so much blood during my escape that I felt weak and dizzy. The sight of blood all over the place was gruesome. I am dehydrated and tired but I must return to my village. Perhaps I would just sleep to regain my strength. At least I escaped from Gorg and would now be a normal man…. 

Aftermath of Otzi!

Interesting Ant Species

Interesting Ant Species

          There is about 20,000 ant species around the world, but one of the most interesting ant species is the Polyergus or more commonly known as the slave raiding ants. These ants have a particular custom that are similar to human, and that is raiding territory and capturing enemy for slave.

          Most ants have a huge workforce that provided food and care for everyone and the queen, but the Polyergus are so lazy to work they find an alternative to work. The other ant species that lives near the area where Polyergus lives are the Formica. The Formica is like normal household ants that lives inside wood or mound.  Due to the Polyergus superior strength and warlike body, they with a 6-8 weeks period usually raid Formica territory. After neutralizing the Formica, the Polyergus will usually take the Formica’s pupae and bring it back to the Polyergus own territory. They’ll start to breed the pupae with help from before captured Formica. After the pupae are hatched, the Polyergus will eliminate the odour from the Formica and started to use them as their workforce for gathering food.  After the workforces have deceased, the raid starts all over again. Unlike to human, the raids are usually non-violent and there are almost no casualties in raids like that. The Polyergus usually overwhelm them is massive number, and they started to emit confusing acid and odour. After the queen ant of the Formica evacuated her ants, the Polyergus started to take the Formica’s pupae. 

          In conclusion, even with similar attitude with human, the Polyergus ants are different in the sense that they never commit violence in a slave raid. The Polyergus raids of the Formica is a truly remarkable stuff that is happening right now in the nature.

A Polyergus ants!

The Trail Of Tears

This is a fiction journal written story about a Cherokee boy being evicted from his land.

The Trail Of Tears

DAY 1

I can hear the government talking to my father in the room. I did not meant to eavesdrop, but it felt like a reflex; something that was meant for me to do. The government was again, asking my father, the sovereign, to sign yet another treaty. I tried persuading my father to stop making wrong decisions and that these will cause us to abate. It is a sham. Those pioneers would not care about those laws and would still come straight in. I keep telling Father that the Europeans are evil people who wanted to take our land away and are those who killed many of our villagers with an epidemic they called “Small Pox”. Father would just explained to me about considering the land, and how we can stop the pioneers coming in. Father started to be annoyed by me and spurns my suggestion angrily.

DAY 2

Father agreed to the government and had signed the treaty once again. My father was deluded into thinking the Europeans were good, and I felt like I have some responsibility as the eldest son to compel him to think otherwise and cope with these problems. 

DAY 3

When the villagers are doing their daily chores today, the intrepid hunters and the industrious farmers realized that the new treaty was signed, and started to have a discussion on what they should do. Instead of joining them and concurred with what are right and what’s wrong, I tried to settle the argument. Some villagers are stating that father is being capricious, and some others are looking at the same prospective with father. I am not sure if I understand this issue, but I am willing to help. 

FEW MORE DAYS LATER

A proficient agent of the government persuaded twenty of us Cherokees to sign another treaty. This treaty offers five million dollars for us in exchange of us leaving the land, moving to the west. I think this is not impartial, considering that twenty Cherokees have no authority to represent all the others. Luckily, it was brushed aside as irrelevant. I was feeling zestful by the fact that it was useless and also happy to see the villagers to be happy and not infuriated. I just hoped that this will be the end of these treaties, and we Cherokees just settle here for the rest of our lives. 

PRECISELY TWO YEARS LATER

These days, every Cherokee who had been evicted out of the land was agitated. We were forced to trek to the west. An estimated amount of Cherokees had died in either a casualty or by walking too long and tired. In these past few years, many had died either in the disease “Small Pox” or from this journey that we had been forced to take. The Europeans caused all this and I would not forgive them for what they have done. One day, I will stand up and face this Europeans once more and be a staunch man and face these problems.

Country without an army

Country without an army

          

          A country without an army is hard to imagine, but there is one such country and it is called Liechtenstein. There are many reasons why a country will abolish their army. This included that a country might have another country protecting it, the country don't want or doesn't have the money to finance the army, or that no one dares to attack the country. For Liechtenstein the reason is that they see maintaining an army is way too expensive. Other reason also causes the government in Liechtenstein deter the idea of maintaining an army. First of all no country would really want to takeover Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is a small principality the geographically located in the Alps. Liechtenstein is not both strategically important and there is no major resource output there. The other reason is that Liechtenstein is like Monaco, it is a micro nation where that if other Europe country wanted to absorb it is actually a waste of money. This is because after a country attacks Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein's tiny economy can’t generate a satisfying amount of money to their "conquerer" country which should be hundreds of times bigger the Liechtenstein (even though Liechtenstein have a high GDP this is due to the population is less then 40,000 people and the economy mostly focused on small business). This is the reason why Liechtenstein doesn’t need an army. Liechtenstein has a rule that stated an army can be re-activate if a country attacks them. But so far no country has attacks Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein has its own police/swat team to maintain internal peace, but no army. In conclusion, with a reasons such as, geographically, strategically, and economy "unimportant" country, Liechtenstein doesn’t need an army to defend from curios attacker.

Should GMO label be on GMO food?

Should GMO label be on GMO food?

         
           Every store a person walks into will at least finds foods that contains at least an ingredient that made out of generic modified organism (GMO). With public awareness these days, more people started to questioned whether that GMO made food should be clearly label what origin is it. The answer is yes because of two reasons: some people will wanted to know what they’re eating and, if specific GMO food started to produce side effect, investigations can be easier. 

          
          GMO foods have been in supermarkets for a very long time and in many of the shelves too. An example of this is a Missouri based company called Monsanto. Not many people heard of this company but their effect on many North American is huge. People who understand how modern process food is made will know that most process food is usually made out of corn or soybean. 90%    of those seed grown in North America are genetically modified, 70% of process food are made out of those seeds, and Monsanto control 90% of those seeds through patent right. In other words, products such as tofu, soy milk, or anything with high fructose corn syrup contains GMO ingredient. GMO have been studied for decade and had been a big part in modern human life such as genetic modified tomatoes that are in our shelf since the 1980s.

   

          Some people is picky on what they eat. If a person chooses to eat healthily, they’re generally healthy. Some people out there are strongly against by the idea that human is “changing” how nature works. Some people fear that food that are modified is bad for health since those product are not natural. For this situation labels becomes very important. People who tried to avoid GMO food can clearly separate the food they wanted to buy or not wanted to buy. Not only the label can separate the GMO food to other food, it can also help it the other way. 

          
          Regulators and many scientists said that the GMO product is safe and poses no danger. This doesn’t mean that GMO product is a hundred percent safe. GMO food is a process that alters the code of a cell. This procedure can result in mutations, making these products not a hundred percent safe. If a consumer comes downs with a GMO related sickness, they can’t identified which product they eat resulting their sickness. With a label they can easily identify which product that they suspect the most which can result an investigation on that product. With a label identify product that is not safe for human consumption.

          In conclusion, even GMO food is proven safe, some people don’t like food being modify or that some people just wanted GMO food be labeled. Some people is more strict on their diet will wanted to know what kind of food they’re eating and where the GMO food started to turn “bad,” investigation can be made. GMO food isn’t bad in any way but adding a label on it guarantees its safety.