Waste Land Documentary

In my GT class we are on the unit of Hunger, Poverty, and War. We just finished watching Waste Land. The movie was a documentary about people in Brazil who are garbage pickers and Vik Muniz is in the movie and his goal is to help them. Vik Muniz is a famous painter who is from Brazil.

I personally like the documentary. It was on the lives of real people and the people are in the movie and you could see how they live. I learned that there are so many people on this planet that aren't fortunate and have to work at places like Jardim Gramacha. Jardim Gramacha is a sanitary waste facility landfill that was established in 1970. The site receives more trash every day than any landfill in the world! 7,000 tons of garbage arrive daily making up 70% of the trash produced by Rio de Janeiro and surrounding areas. These garbage pickers help the people of Brazil because without them materials wouldn't be able to be recycled. They are very important, but they don't get the respect they deserve from people; people just look down on them.

Overall the film really touched me and also shocked me. I was shocked to see the way some of these people were living. I know that there is no way that I can live like that even for a day, and these people live like this everyday, this is their life! The thing that shocked me the most was that some people were happy to be working there! For example Valter liked to work there and he was proud to be a garbage picker. I couldn't believe it. Isis was another person who was in the documentary. She was a garbage picker as well. She didn't like it at all there, but she had to work there because of a tragedy. I liked the film because it showed the lives of people in today's world and the conditions they are living in. I learned an immense amount of new things from the film. I was sad to see the way these people were living and it really got me angry that the government of Brazil wasn't doing anything to help them. They were just ignoring them and all of their hard work and protests! This is wrong, these people are working so hard to keep their country clean and are living in such harsh conditions and they don't receive any credit, respect, or much money! I liked the film because in the end the main charcaters' lives had improved, and I like to see the lives of people who are not as unfortunate improve.

Ms. Mystrena told us a little bit about the Waste Land before we started watching the movie. From what she told us I thought that the film was just about some people who are homeless and pick garbage just like homeless people that you see if you ever go to the city. I didn't expect the film to be so touching, I thought that I was going to see the lives of some homeless people and how they live, but throughout the film my thoughts drastically changed. Throughout the film I saw the lives of people who work so hard everyday and how they live. I saw a mother being separated from her little children for weeks. Suelem was 18 and had two kids who were toddlers or babies, and she couldn't see them for a couple weeks at a time! She has been working at the landfill since she was seven! That is crazy, at the age of seven I was a little second grader! Zumbi was working very hard to bring money home so that he can give his son a proper education. He didn't want his son to be a garbage picker like him, he wanted his son to become successful. Zumbi had been working at the landfill since he was nine years old! My opinion of the movie definitely changed from the beginning. I now think that this was a great film and was very informational.

Vik Muniz is a very great person. After most people who were poor become rich they forget where they came from. Money becomes their life, but not for Vik; he went back to the land where he was born and grew up to help others. Vik went there and made paintings of the people and sold them. The money that he made from selling the paintings was given directly to the people. These people were poor and now they had some money to live better on a daily basis. Vik also opened up their eyes. He didn't make the paintings alone. They all worked together to make them. This gave them all hope that they aren't just garbage pickers, instead they are capable of doing great things too. This hope that they got led to all of them doing other things that they like to do. Zumbi and Tiao built a library with the money that they got. Isis left Gramacho and got married and now works at a supermarket. Vik gave these people the thing they need most; they need to believe in themselves. Vik is a very caring person to do this for them.

The movie actually did make me think how much garbage I produce on a daily basis. I realized that my family produces garbage that goes to landfills like Gramacho. I don't think that I will change the way in which I consume and dispose things. My whole family recycles our garbage. I'm not going to just eat less food so less trash is produced. I know that I will definitely recycle, but I'm not going to change my consuming habits.

There could be other areas of society that could be highlighted in Vik Muniz's artistic way. For example places like Africa where there are very poor people. There are very young children working for over 16 hours a day there and getting paid less than $1! Places like these can be helped through Vik Muniz's artistic way. There are definitely more places in the world that are like Jardim Gramacho. We can't have Vik Muniz use his artistic skills to help every single place, but we can all work together since we are all humans living on planet Earth. We can forget our differences in politics or viewpoints on war and just work together to make the lives of those people who are so hard working, but don't get the proper wage or respect they deserve.

Terri Schiavo Case

In my GT class we learned about the Terri Schiavo Case.In 1990 a woman named Terri Schiavo fell into a coma. On February 25, 1990 she collapsed in her home in St. Petersburg, Florida in full cardiac arrest. She suffered massive brain damage due to lack of oxygen and fell into a coma which was soon announced that it was an irreversible coma. There was an immense amount of debate on if they should keep her alive or not. Her parents wanted to keep her alive, but her husband Michael Schiavo said that it would be better for her to die then to live like this in an irreversible coma. Many people had gotten involved with the case including Jeb Bush who was the governor of Florida at the time. This case was spread throughout the country and there was an abundance of controversy on the decision to keep her alive or not. She ended up dieng on March 31, 2005 at 9:03 AM Eastern time after being in coma for 15 years! Her feeding tube was removed on March 18 which is what caused her to die.

I personally think that the decision to dis-connect Terri from life support was justified. She was in an irreversible coma, so she had little to no chance of ever recovering. I don't think that anybody would want to live in a coma where all you can do is think and breath. If I was Terri I would want to die because I wouldn't want to live in a coma because then my family has to spend so much money on me and I don't want them to waste money on me when there is no chance for me to recover and they have to spend so much money on me and then can't use it for themselves. They can't use that money for my sister's education and for things they like. I also would hate to just lie there in bed for many many years doing absolutely nothing. As mentioned in NNBD it states how Schiavo's doctors and her court-appointed doctors expressed the opinion that there existed no hope of rehabilitation. This shows that there was no reason to keep her alive in a life where nothing can be achieved. Your life will not be good at all. David Gibbs said in an article on CNN he says she has the mental capacity of a 6-month-old. George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney, has said she lacks all mental capacity and spinal fluid occupies the space where her cerebral cortex was. I don't think you would like to live in a condition like this, this is why I strongly believe the right decision was to end her life.

Least to most controversial the 9 natal bioethical issues

1. Natural Reproduction
2. Fertility drugs: Prescription drugs which increase a woman’s chance of becoming pregnant
3. Carrier testing: Genetic tests of parents that show the risk of passing on a genetic disorder
4. Prenatal testing: genetic screening of fetus for genes that cause disorders
5. Artificial  Insemination: Insertion of sperm into female reproductive tract by syringe in a doctor’s office
6. Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis for Diseases: Fertilization of sperm and egg in a Petri dish. Embryos are screened for a certain genetic disorder.  Those without the defective gene are inserted into the female reproductive tract via a syringe in a doctor’s office.
7. In Vitro Fertilization: Fertilization of sperm and egg in a Petri dish.  Viable embryos are chosen and inserted into the female reproductive tract via a syringe in a doctor’s office.
8. Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis for Non-deleterious Traits: Fertilization of sperm and egg in a Petri dish. Embryos are screened for genes of non-deleterious traits (such as hair color, height, sex).  Those with desired genes are inserted into the female reproductive tract via a syringe in a doctor’s office. 

9. Cloning: The creation of an organism that is an exact genetic copy of another.

This is the order from 1-9 that I place the 9 natal bio ethical issues. I chose this order because to me it makes the most sense. Of course natural reproduction is first because it is natural and common and that is how most people reproduce today. I put fertility drugs as #2 because I don't think people would have a problem with a women taking drugs to help her become pregnant. For my third choice I picked carrier testing because to me there isn't anything wrong about genetic testing to see if there will be any genetic disorders passed on to their child. I put prenatal testing as four because this also tests for genes that causes disorders. I think people would still argue for my #3 and #4 choices because they may think it isn't right to test, but I don't see any problems with it. For #5 I chose Artificial Insemination because it could be helpful if a parent or both parents aren't able to reproduce normally so they can get a child, but there could also be some arguments to whether or not it is good to insert sperm into the female reproductive tract. For my 6th choice I chose Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis for Diseases because you are fertilizing sperm and egg in a petri dish and then inserted into the female reproductive tract. In can be helpful because the defective genes aren't inserted into the female reproductive tract, but it isn't naturally reproducing offspring, you are technically picking the genes. For #7 I chose In Vitro Fertilization because you are fertilizing in a petri dish and then choosing the viable embryos and inserting them into the female reproductive tract, this is controversial because you are picking the genes of your kid and personally I am against that. For my 8th choice I picked Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis for Non-deleterious Traits because fertilize the sperm and egg in a petri dish and then embryos are screened for genes and the desired genes are placed into the female reproductive tract. This is definitely controversial because a lot of people would be against people picking the genes of their children and I am against it because then the child isn't "natural". Cloning was my last choice because it is definitely the most controversial. You can't clone people because then they are exactly alike. This is very wrong and things could go wrong in cloning.

I would personally want to stop at Artificial Insemination. I would want to stop here because I can understand how some people aren't able to have babies and want to have children so they can get the sperm inserted into the female reproductive tract. Any further though in my opinion isn't good. It all has to do with picking your child's genes and if it will have any diseases or not and then leads to cloning! If we went that far then there would be many problems in the world and people who are genetically superior would end up having more rights than the people who are naturally born. This would cause chaos in the world and if people are cloned there would be two people who are exactly alike so they can act as one another which would cause problems. We should stop at Artificial Insemination because this would benefit our future.

My Reaction on Gattaca

We are in the unit Ethics right now in my GT class. Before we left for Christmas break we watched the movie Gattaca. It was very different than any other movie I have ever watched. The movie was about choosing your child's genes that would determine their characteristics in life. In the movie there was a person named Vincent Freeman who was born naturally without any superior genes. His father was going to name him Anton, which is after his own name, but then the nurse told him and his wife that their child has 99% chance of heart disease. That is why he decided to name him Vincent. Couple years later they had another kid. They chose his genes before he was born so that he wouldn't have any diseases or genetically transmitted issues. This made him superior to Vincent so their dad decided to name him Anton. Vincent and Anton would always play a game called chicken, in this game they would swim off the shore to see who can swim further. Of course Anton would always win because he was genetically superior to Vincent. Vincent always had a dream to go out into space, but he wasn't genetically superior. He kept trying to become an astronaut, but he couldn't and had to look for a job and became a janitor because he was an underclass human and was useful only for menial jobs. But one day a stranger meets Vincent and takes him to a man named Jerome Morrow. Jerome was genetically superior, also known as a valid who was an ex- sports champion, but is crippled. He no longer cared about his life because he had already tried to kill himself once and he wanted to give Vincent an oppurtunity. Then Vincent takes Jerome's physical appearance to resemble Jerome. Jerome gives Vincent his blood, urine, hair, and skin samples. Then Vincent goes to the Gattaca which is where Jerome worked. He uses Jerome's urine and blood samples so that he can be known as a "valid". A valid is someone who is genetically superior to people who are born normally because a valid's genes and characteristics were chosen before he/she was born. Vincent keeps Jerome's identity, but then a person gets murdered in Gattaca and Vincent is scared that he will get caught and even though he didn't commit the crime, since he isn't valid he will be held guilty. He never gets caught, but near the end of the movie his brother who is a police officer finds out that he is really Vincent and they play chicken again and this time Vincent wins and when Anton asks Vincent how he's doing it, Vincent says a great quote; "I didn't save any for the way back". This shows that he uses all his energy into swimming out, but doesn't save any for the way back. Then when Vincent is about to go to Saturn's moon called Titan the doctor at Gattaca finds out that he is not valid, but makes the computer say valid so that Vincent can fulfill his dream.

Im my opinion this movie was kind of boring. It was differnt, but wasn't interesting to me. I'm not too interested in cloning and reproduction of  babies by picking their genes and characteristics before hand. The story was a little dry as well, so overall the movie wasn't that good, but I did get an idea of what could happen in the future.

Values

In my GT class we are learning about ethics, morals, and values. Yesterday we took a survey to find out what our own values are. In the survey we had to check anything that is important to us. Then we pick our top 5. Then we go on the back and see what each number means to see our most important values.

Mine were:
- Appearance, Beauty, Approval
- Love, Friendship, Personal closeness
- Health, Personal saftey, Security
- Family, Love, Emotional security
- Financial security, Money, Status

I truly believe that these five values describe me perfectly. I am a guy, but I really care about my appearance to others. I always need to look good, so in the morning sometimes I spend five more minutes doing my hair rahter than eating breakfast which my mom made for me. I always want to look perfect, with my hair perfectly gelled up and my clothes looking good. I definetly value love and friendship because I love my friends, especially my really close friends, I will love them for life. I value health and personal saftey because if I am healthy, I will be able to do anything without taking precautions. I need personal saftey so I don't get hurt or jumped and injured. I value family alot. I love my family more than anything and always will. They support me so much and are always there for me sacrificing their time and things for me. They get everything for me and help me whenever I need them. I value emotional security because if I am emotionaly stable this would help keep diseases away and I would be joyful and helpful to to others. Financial security is very valuable to me. I want to be very rich when I grow up. I want to have an amazing house, great cars, and give my family everything. Especially my parents who won't ask for anything, but I want to give them everything they would want.

This value survey was perfectly accurate. It 100% described my values and I am surprised that it was so accurate. I really enjoyed doing this survey because it was fun and I got to better see my values and I like doing surveys like these.

Outliers: The Trouble With Geniuses Part 1 and 2

1. In my GT class we are reading the novel Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The premise and purpose of the book is about people who are "outliers". This means that they are different than others. This book talks about people who are different in ways than most people. It also talks about many famous and successful people such as Bill Gates for example. It also talks about different theories and explanations for things that we would have never figured out. 

2. Chapters 3 and 4 were about Chris Langan and also had some other information in them. Chris Langan has an IQ of 195, the average human has an IQ of 100 and Einstein's IQ was 150! This shows that Chris Langan is a complete genius! He started talking at six months of age, in school he could walk into a test in a foreign language class, not having studied at all, and if he there were 2 or 3 minutes before the instructor arrived, he could skim through the textbook and ace the test! When he was fifteen he could match Jim Hendrix on the guitar. He didn't attend school at all. He would just show up for tests and ace them and the teachers couldn't do anything about it. Gladwell also stated that once your IQ is above 120 it doesn't matter if someone else's is 130 or 140 because that range isn't as big as 60-70. When your two people have an IQ that high they both have the same chance of winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Gladwell also showed 2 questions from a typical Raven's intelligence test, one question was easy, but the other was very hard and nobody in the class could figure it out. Gladwell compared IQ levels to basketball heights which I agreed with and also didn't. He said that if you aren't six feet or six one you can't play at that level which isn't true. There were an abundance of good basketball players who were under six feet tall. If you know about basketball there are and were many good players under six feet in height. Examples are Nate Robinson, Spud Webb, Jameer Nelson, Mugsy Bogues, Chris Paul, and Allen Iverson. There are others too, but these are some really good ones, Nate Robinson is only 5'7" and he won the dunk contest three years in a row and blocked Yao Ming who is 7'6"! You need to be able to jump high rather than height, because shorter people can jump higher than taller people so they can reach the same height so it doesn' matter. It does matter on some positions, if you are playing center you need to be at least 6'11", if you are forward around 6'3"-6'10", and if you're playing guard you don't need to be tall. I do agree with the statement that just because a guy is 6'8" doesn't mean he is better than someone who is 6'5".  He also talked about different colleges that produced people who won the Nobel Prize. Overall I think this chapter had an immense amount of information which was very interesting to me!

3. I personally think that Chris Langan in a way was successful, but in a way also wasn't successful. Our class definition of successful was to maintain a balance between financial stability and happiness with self and others and to accomplish the goals you want to achieve. He achieved his goal which was to live on a farm. He also is happy with his life. This does make him successful. I don't think he was that financially stable. He was average or less than average in the video we saw about him. He lives on a farm in a small house. This isn't that financially stable. I feel that if he wanted to he could have done much more with his life, he is a complete genius and if he went into a company or opened up a business I honestly feel that he could have been rich. He is very smart and would be able to work well and make good money. He also flunked out of college, if he went back and got a better education he would have been extremely smart and definitely would have been able to make good money. 

4. I will take away many things from these two chapters. I learned that once your IQ is at 120 it doesn't matter if it's higher than that or not, so now I won't be like oh his IQ is 130 and your IQ is 125 so he is smarter! I also love what  Gladwell said on page 83. He said "To be a Nobel Prize winner, apparently, you have to be smart enough to get into a college at least as good as Notre Dame or the University of Illinois. This changes my viewpoint on being able to win the Nobel Prize! I always thought you had to be super smart and go to an Ivy League college to even have a slim chance of winning a Nobel Prize, but now I have hope and will  definitely try to go on a path that will help me win a Nobel Prize!

Outliers

1. In GT we are reading the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The purpose of the book is to tell people about the lives of people who are successful, or unique in a way. It says how they became successful and also about their lives. We have also read about things such as the 10,000 rule which states that to be "good" at something you have to practice it for at least 10,000 hours. So lets say you want to be a soccer player when you grow up, well to become "good" you would have to practice at least 10,000 hours! That's a lot of time isn't it? Well if you are actually dedicated to be "good" at something than you would practice more than 10,000 hours, just like anyone who is a professional at anything, they are dedicated and have definitely practiced for at least 10,000 hours, that is why they are "good."

2. Chapters 3 and 4 were very long, but also contained an immense amount of information. Chapter 3 had an abundance amount of information about Christopher Langan. He isn't a famous person, but he has an IQ of around 193! That is amazingly high! This chapter talked about his life and how smart he was when he was young and how smart he still is. This chapter also talked about IQ and IQ Tests. Towards the end of the chapter Gladwell talked about people who won the Nobel Prize and which colleges they had come from. In Chapter 4 talked more about Chris Langan and more on his life in college and how he had a hard time unfortunately. It also talked about Robert Oppenheimer. It ended of talking about how Chris Langan's life today is.

3. I personally think that Chris Langan in a way is successful and in a way isn't successful. I think that he is successful because he is happy with his life right now even though he lives on a farm in Montana, and isn't that rich. He is happy with his life and doesn't seem to regret any of his actions, this shows that he has accomplished his goal and that means you are successful because once you reach your goal you have got what you wanted. The only reason I feel he isn't successful is because he is so smart and I feel that he could have done much more and could have had at least twice the amount of money he has. I think he could have accomplished something for which he would be remembered for, people are not going to know who he was after he dies, if he had used his brains to do something extraordinary then he would be remembered and also rich.

4. The things that I learned from this chapter is that you don't need to go to Harvard to win a Nobel Prize award. I learned that you can do something even if you don't go to an amazing college. I also learned that once your IQ is at a high level and someone else's is higher, then at that point it doesn't make much of a difference because both of you are smart and are capable enough to handle the same tasks. The thing that I will take away from this chapter is that to be successful all I have to do is reach my goal, I don't have to do what anyone else thinks successful means, because if I can accomplish my goal, than I am successful and happy with my life!