Today is the tenth day of November. The year is two thousand and eleven.

Dr. President Obama

Today has been a good day. I have had two cups of coffee and I have yet to feel crummy yet! My enrollment time for registering for classes for next semester was 11 a.m. this morning and I received every class that I wanted to get. I even added on an additional class... archery.

My strategy for enrolling for spring semester classes was to not set lofty goals, therefore I would not feel let down. I was pleasantly surprised to find that some of the classes that I thought I wouldn't be able to get were available.

Other than getting a great schedule for next semester, I had an enjoyful lunch earlier where I ate chick fil a death pellets, waffle fries, and watched an episode of the office. I then ventured to write a blog post that I found rather accessible. (I thought it would be more challenging than it was)

Tonight I expect to go to campus crusade with my bros and have an enjoyable time. Tonight is a full moon so I plan on gazing at that for some time. Tomorrow I will be going to a dance.

Sincerely,

Sam Dearstyne

Oh and its my birthday

Progressing toward an ancient set of life values

I agree with the author when he says "Our point is that educational effort of substance will be required to get the most out of that small set of ideas—agrarianism, the commons, no-growth economics, and the maximum wage—that hold the greatest promise for solving the world’s most vexing problems". When our culture hits the point where we can no longer proceed with its ways of living- hyper consuming resources and having an over all lack of concern for other living entities- we will have to make a return to some form of "simpler", agrarian society. 


A shift of this magnitude will require a revolution in the way humans view their world. Most importantly, the covenant that our society obeys today, self improvement by any means necessary, must be vanquished. This will most likely only be accomplished by a massive grassroots revolution or a near extinction of entire races of people due to our blind consumption of resources. 


Education will be crucial to this process. I like how the article states that eduction shouldn't be a means to prepare you for later, but education should be happening in the present as one goes about their daily lives, working to improve their environment. 


A truly sophisticated culture will be able to recognize and admit the mistakes they've made, and then be willing to "devolve" back to a more sustainable lifestyle. From what I've noticed, our culture is notorious for not being able to accept our mistakes, and the idea of devolution is tagged with countless wretched monikers. 


“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” - Aldous Huxley

180 south response

still to come..... :)

Response to Dr. T's piece

I believe that a critical Geography is necessary when analyzing a location. As Dr. Taylor stated, educators need to realize the dominant influences in kids lives within places of struggle. What stood out to me was the anecdote about the 50 cent poster. It is profound to me that culture today is so accepting of this violence, and yet is in such opposition to education.

I sometimes wonder if educators almost give up on areas such as Ward 7 & 8 as Dr. T stated. If educators only strive to "get by", and never work to educate and rehabilitate the lives of kids living in areas like this, the kids are never going to be enthusiastic about education and there will always be a negative stigma about education in the community. 

Response towards "Indigenous Resistance"

I was confused at the beginning of this essay. I wasn't sure what the big deal was about having the Coast Salish people being split between the U.S. and Canada. Then I realized that the Coast Salish people's concept of political boundaries is far from ours. As stated in the text "The boarder, while signifying the differences between two empires, made little sense to Coast Salish people...".  I believe it is truly impossible for indigenous people to remain true to their roots amongst an industrialized and modernized culture. The dominant culture will always take precedence over the "savage" culture, regardless if they've thrived for hundreds of years before colonization occurred.

The dominant culture will try and innoculate the indigenous people with their culture, religion, and education. As mentioned in the text, the metamorphosis that modern culture uses to try and "civilize the savages", often results in destroying the indigenous people's sense of being. They've lost almost all ties to their indigenous culture, while at the same time not being fully accepted into modern industrial society. I found this to be a discouraging conclusion to come to, and only further supports the argument that modernized culture is destructive. 

Response to Butterfly Lessons

The claim made in "Butterfly Lessons" is that there are ways of evaluating global warming by observing the various adjustments made by species in response to a warmer climate. One of the ways that Kolber proves this point is by profiling the Bradshaw-Holzapfel Mosquito laboratory. They were able to prove that  changes in a mosquitos environment can have a direct effect on the genetic composition of subsequent generations. Proving this was monumental in that "they became the first researchers to demonstrate that global warming had begun to drive evolution." 

Subtle Queues from Natures Tiny Creatures

Butterfly Lessons informs that the evolutionary effects of global warming can already be seen in some species.
At first I was skeptical as to whether the migrational patters of butterflies or the breeding time for mosquitoes is really something that is relevant and important. It then occurred to me that these seemingly simple species have been adapting to subtle climate changes throughout their history. Their awareness of the environment and the way that they adapt to changes is could be an excellent alternative way of measuring global warming progress from a biological perspective. I believe that observing the variations that species are making to adapt to a warmer climate is a great gauge for measuring global warming.
Observing and publishing various indicators of global warming such as CO2 concentrations may be the most accurate form of analysis. Yet although this scientific data affects everyone, the general public may feel removed from global warming discussions purely because a lack of knowledge on what numbers like CO2 in parts per million indicate. If scientist can show how this scientific data affects everyday organism, like was done in "Butterfly Lessons", the public may too be able to recognize the problems facing our planet and act on it.