Outside Reading Book

Expect a post about The Five People You Meet in Heaven  by Mitch Albom in the near future...

Will Dropouts Save America?

Here is the link to the article.  Michael Ellsberg is a visionary. You must read this. It could be the most important thing you will ever read.

     It royally pisses me off whenever someone comments on my grades being inadequate. I choose exactly what my grades are. I could have straight A pluses, but it is not worth it. I don't want to go to Oxford. I have a cousin who went to Harvard and  cousin who went to Yale, and neither of them seem any different than anybody else I know. A school is a school, no matter how small. When you empty your pockets to pay for your child's education, you are paying to rename them. You stamp them with an insignia that will tell their future employers about what they learned in school. If you are unhappy with your kid's name, whose fault is that?
     I can only muster two complaints about the article. The first is the fact that Ellsberg never closed his parenthesis in paragraph five. The second is that he argues extremes. If everybody was to drop out of college, nobody would have the skills learned in school, and this would make a higher education valuable. Plus, when he cites all the people in the beginning, he uses people that have made it big time. Not everyone can do that, and this does draw away from the appeal slightly, but the average reader wouldn't give it a second thought. He had to do that because if he didn't people would be utterly confused as to who he was talking about, and he wished to stay direct and to the point. This article has put into words what I wish to say to my mom the next time she tells me she dreams of me going to an Ivy League school. Ivy League does not equate to a better education, job, and life.

The Electric Leaf’s True Believers Won’t Leave Well Enough Alone

    I am an avid fan of the BBC's Top Gear. It is a hilarious show about three men who test cars and compare their effectiveness and practicability. One of the newest episodes contained a lengthy segment on the Nissan Leaf. Their task was to drive from their studio to the ocean. That was it. There were a few positive features on the car, one was that is was extremely quiet. Another would be that the ride was decent, meaning you didn't feel every little bump in the road.
     However, there were a preposterous amount of gripes. The biggest one was that although they were only driving a distance of about eighty miles (and they started with a fully charged battery), they actually ran out of energy and had to push the car to a place where they could charge. Second, there was nowhere nearby that they could charge. They pushed from restaurants to city offices, and finally were allowed to charge at a university. And then it took twelve stinking hours to charge the stupid thing! The crew actually went on a couple of tours around the city to pass the time, which turned out to be quite comical. During this time, they discussed how the battery in the Leaf needs to be replaced every five years or so. This costs about 5000 pounds, or $7861.50. That is absolute nonsense for a car that is fairly steeply priced to begin with at 30,000-ish pounds. Also, the car was, as expected, dead slow, barely reaching acceptable highway speeds.
     My question is why would anybody buy a Nissan Leaf if there are so many problems that come along with it? Yes it is cool that people will modify your Leaf and improve it, but after a while it will all start to add up, and the cost will simply become too great. My recommendation: buy a nice, petrol eater to save yourself the trouble accompanying the Nissan "Grief".

Click here to read the article.

Coming Soon: The Drone Arms Race

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/sunday-review/coming-soon-the-drone-arms-race.html?ref=opinion I have commanded innumerable amounts of UAV's in Call of Duty. This is really the first time I've heard that they are not common things. Sure, the Obama Administration has supported them, but this article is questioning whether or not that is actually a good thing. The United States, as of now, is by far the leading carrier of RPA's, and this poses a major problem. We have seen arms races countless times throughout history, and this is shaping up to resemble one. Surely, our enemies are going to follow in our footsteps and create their own RPA's, which poses a major threat to our soldiers. The real question is this: is military technology beneficial to our struggle against terrorism or will its use against us become too great for us to handle? I'll leave that up to you, dear reader. Now, a comment on Scott Shane's tone. He is bone dry. I actually had trouble finishing the article because it was so boring. He gives it to you straight, which I appreciate, but it would have been nice to have had some spice in it. Or any sensation whatsoever. To keep a reader interested, keep toying with their emotions. I feel that he could have gone all-out with this topic, as it is a precursor to what he is claiming will be an arms race. Anyhow, a cool topic, and it certainly generates some thought.

Starting Again After a Brain Injury

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/brain-injury-and-building-a-new-life-afterwards.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1 This is one of the finest articles I have ever laid eyes upon. I applaud you, Jane Rosett, for you are a soldier who is fighting "The True Good Fight", the fight for one's survival. You are powerful, and I think you are a thing of beauty, not for working so hard to achieve what one would call a state of normality, but for finding the strength to disregard what people assume about you, and for treating yourself like a human-being. Your article is strongly directed to the pathos appeal. One of the main instances of this is how you refer to re-discovering chewing gum. It is such a simple thing, yet it hits as hard as a two trains in a head-on collision. It really made me stop and think about how much I know, but also how much about life that I don't know, if that makes sense. There is so much to learn, and so much to see before I die. I once read somewhere a phrase, so simple and happy, yet depressing all the same. It said, "All I have left to do is die". I wish those to be my final words, and I'm sure Jane Rosett will be able to say this phrase honestly when her time comes.

The end of the world: R.E.M. calling it quits

One of the greatest rock groups of all-time has fallen. R.E.M. is now a thing of the past. Michael Stipe, the lead singer, offers a statement of comfort to his fans. "A wise man once said -- `the skill in attending a party is knowing when it's time to leave.' We built something extraordinary together. We did this thing. And now we're going to walk away from it." What a very mature thing to say. All good things must come to an end.
However, one can't help but feel a little sentimental in remembering all their hits, not that I was around to do so or anything, but they are simply too fantastic to not listen to. YouTube is a wonderful resource for the modern musician. As we speak, I'm listening to Layla performed live by Clapton and Wynton Marsalis, probably something that will never be performed again. Unbelievable what it can do. But back to the subject. The band that put a Man on the Moon is done for. But again, is this a bad thing? I can't wait to see their next projects and what comes of them individually.
A quick word on the author of the piece, she must have loved REM. She absolutely raved about them the entire time and got all emotional with us about how they are never making any more music together and all that bubbly crap. She must have grown up with them, and now that they're gone, she is trying to make the reader love REM as much as she did.

London theater to stage Shakespeare's plays in 37 languages

He is said to be the one true master of the English language. William Shakespeare has written a total of 37 plays in addition to four poems and 154 sonnets. He owned the Globe Theater, located in London, England, where his works were performed by his troupe, King Chamberlin's men. For the very first time, you can witness the performance of all of these plays at the modern Globe Theater! What's more, they will be in 37 different languages!
Hold on. It's tough to comprehend Shakespeare in English, never mind Mandarin Chinese. Anybody who attends this event will likely have their head explode as a result of attempting to decipher the 37 tongues. This article raises a great point though. If you already know the 37 stories, it should be fun trying to follow along. I have seen Shakespeare's collected works bound into one book, and I know a person who has read it cover to cover. I can see why it would be cool; it would be like me going to see Doctor Who re-enacted in Gallifreyan. An interesting trip to England nonetheless.