Robert Ebert

          So the last few weeks were very interesting and very insightful. It was really nice to learn about Roger Ebert's life and how he lived his life before and after his his cancers. He is a very inspirational person and he helps put in perspective what our lives are really about and what we should really live for and appreciate. Why, when faced with a personal tragedy, do some people swim while others sink?  I think this that this really depends on how you were raise and what happened to you when you were young. For example, when I was younger my grand father died and it was the most upsetting thing that has ever happened to me. I cried so much and like two years after the fact I would cried every time someone would mention him.

           That experience has effected me in a way that now when a family member passes, its not very difficult for me to move on with my life. Its not like I don't care any more about them its more like that I know that they would not want people to stop their lives for them. My parents are not able to move on very quickly when a family member passes away it usually take time for them to recover. Also whether you sink or swim would also depend on the knowledge you have on the world. For example if you are in tune with the world around us today and you see all the death and terrible things that happen, you will take a family member passing away a little better. That is because you are desensitized by the news and bad things don't affect you as much. To conclude I learned a ton from learning about Robert Ebert, and have a new-ish out look on that is half optimistic and half realistic.

The Perfect-Victim Pitfall

     We have learned a lot in this class over pass few weeks. The main thing I have learned is that empathy is no longer a thing that is common in our culture now a days.In the many cases that we have looked at in the past couple months unfortunately shows that. Now don't get me wrong I am not saying that there is no empathy at all by no means, I am just saying that there isn't enough of it. In Eric Gardeners case he was put into a choke hold, which is illegal in NYC, and stated that he could not breath on multiple occasions. Though the police officers, people that are put in charge of protecting us, did nothing to help him. Also, in the case about Tamir Rice, a child who was playing with a toy gun was shot without hesitation when the officers got to the scene. They did not try to get the gun away from him, or try to stop him in anyway.

     All of the cases that we have covered all share one major thing in common. All the victims/ "offenders", were people of color.And all the cases show the bases of institutional racism. It shows that even though people say that racism is no longer a problem, but it is a great problem, North Korea has called us out on it. If we are being told by North Korea that we have human rights problems, you know that we have hit the lowest we could possibly be. We have more innocent colored people being arrested and harassed by police than we have whites that actually commuted a crime. Also, the police how are supposed to Protect all and treat everyone equal, might need to go back to the academy and learn what those words mean. Again i don't mean all cops, not every cop is racist and ignorant. 

Passion project update 1

So far my group and I have accomplished a lot. We have all the theme songs for the beginning of the video. Also we have a general take on the plot of the video, and the things that we will be doing. Also, Tom started to learn how to throw cards and that was fun to watch and also to actually throw. We have decided what the characters and who plays what characters. 

Emphatic Sociability

I believe that Obama means well when saying that we need to show empathy as well as Jeremy Rifkin. Though to achieve that level of empathy we will have to change everyone's out look on life and their beliefs, and that is easier said than done. Like Jeremy Rifkin said in his video Emphatic Civilization, "without empathy we can not survive as a human race." I agree with this saying, that if we do not start to understand each other that we will no last very long on this world, thought unlike him I believe that we will never be able to have world wide empathy. For example, when Haiti was hit by an earth quack, many people came to there aid and sent them their condolences, but after a few weeks people started to not care about as much as they did, unless they had family there. People usually only care deeply about something if it affects them or their family. So to have world wide empathy you would have to do something very terrible to everyone for people to all come together. Also, many people can not get pasts the difference between us, such as race, color, beliefs, etc. So in reality we will not be able to achieve world wide empathy, the problems that we would have to overcome are just to great.    

Passion Project

       Our passion project is going kinda well. We found some pictures on Google, but nothing more. We have some building ideas, but we don't have a lot of time after school to build anything. But I think we could finish it before it is due.

Passion Project Updates & Reflections

  My project is going pretty well I have some ideas of what I want to show the class but the really cool ones that I want to show are either to hard to do are to dangerous to do in school. I have a couple different places that I can get my tricks from and I will site them in a power point. I will also have on that power point the things that I have failed at doing I might ave a video of it but I am not sure how I would do that, but I will probably figure it out. I have not made any videos yet, but I will soon. 

Who are the outliers of the world?

   The person that I believe is an outlier, is Albert Einstein. I believe he is an outlier because he has accomplish  a lot of great thing in his life, also he is still remembered today. He has helped change the scientific world with his theories and experiments. He developed the general theory of  relativity, which is one of the two pillars of modern physics. He w\has also won the Nobel Peace Prize in Physics. Those where some of his achievements, now on to why he is an outlier.

    He was born March 14, 1879, in Germany. His family were non-observant Jews, and he went to Catholic School for three year from the age of five to the age of eight. After this he received an advanced primary and secondary school education, I believe that mean Elementary school and Middle school. Also, though he excelled greatly in school, some people say that Albert Einstein was dyslexic. Einsteins father once showed him a compass and he was fascinated by the fact the needle moved despite the fact that nothing was their to move it. So through this fascination, he learned that we was good a math. Another thing that contributed to Einstein being and amazing scientist is a poor polish Medical student that was introduced to Einsteins family when he was ten. Every week fro five years when the Medical student would come to visit he wold give Einstein popular books on science, mathematical texts and philosophical writings. When his father company failed his family moved to Italy. He stayed back at Munich where he was going to finish his studies. He father wanted him to go in to the electrical work field, like himself, but Einstein had problems with the school. So he left and later he wrote how the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in strict rote learning. This is exactly what everyone in GT 1 believes as well, so you know that he understand us! At a young adult he published his first paper about his theory relativism. This put him out there as scientist, and later resulted in him being asked by President Roosevelt to work on a project know known as the Manhattan Project. He later worked with another Scientist, to write about why using nuclear weapons are very dangerous. After that he spent his time teaching at the Princeton University until he died after refusing to go to the doctors when he was ill. He said that he did not need to because when his time came to leave he would leave, he said that he did not want to prolong something that had to be done anyway. Also, he said that we had done what he needed to do in this world, and that he was ready to go.

    That is why I believe Albert Einstein is an outlier, he many great opportunities that lead him to become a great figure in Science.