Blog_33

Legalizing pot is also very relevant to college students like you and me. I know, and you probably do to, know loads of people who smoke pot. Most of us use it as a recreational drug, but I don’t think it should be illegal to do that either. It is legal to drink, and every frat on campus takes in underage kids to get drunk, and in some cases to a dangerous level. This slides by as the normal thing to do, which I don’t have a problem with, I actually condone it. What I do have a problem with is the fact that if I have a rough day (and every day is rough in college) and feel like relaxing how I choose by smoking a blunt while harming no others, I am all of the sudden considered a criminal. Some underage kid can join a frat, learn about greek life, and get hammered 5 days a week. I have absolutely no objections. But that kid graduates with being in a fraternity, which looks very prestigious on a resume. The person, who likes to smoke 5 nights a week instead of drink, could build up a criminal record and keep them from finding a good job. Both of these activities are mirror images, two people doing what they like to do to “get away” or to party, or whatever the reason for it. This all seems so crazy and unjust to me. There are a very small percentage of people who experience negative effects, and those negative effects disappear overtime if a user stops. 

Blog_32

Legalizing marijuana is an extremely timely topic in today’s world. Many citizens and politicians are pushing for the medical use of marijuana, and some even for recreational use. I support this movement, and I’m sure that many of the students on this campus would agree with me. Studies have been being done since the 1990s on the medical benefits of marijuana. It is known to help cancer patients with pain, nausea and appetite, and help fight the symptoms of patients with horrible diseases such as Glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, and even AIDS. With the medical field growing fast, patients don’t know what they are getting when their doctor prescribes them medicine. You don’t even know what is in the dangerous over the counter meds that are very easily abused. It would be nice to have a safe option for small problems and symptoms rather than putting new, manmade drugs into your body when we may not know what the result could be. I read an article about a lady who had been taking Percocet safely for ten years for chronic pain and arthritis. After discovering that she could crush them up and get a faster, better high. She soon after became addicted to abusing it this way. "I wasn't trying to abuse it," says Jones, from Holly Springs, N.C., who has since recovered from her battle with addiction. "But after 10 years, I couldn't help what it did to my body or my brain. It was hard to work without it." Pot isn’t the safest thing in the world, but definitely much safer than a lot of legal drugs available. This is a very timely issue right now, especially with how fast technology is growing, you never know what crazy drug they can try to give us next. Some states like California have already made it legal, and I hope the rest follow the same path.

Blog_31

In the episode that I used for my ARP, the whole reason that Echo went to the Rossum building and discovered her past and how she got there, was a news story that she saw while with a client. A student on the campus where Rossum is located killed himself due to an untested drug that was released into the air. The airborne drug affected a lot of students, but not all of them were fatal. The drug makes you feel giddy and high, like any typical narcotic. Upon further ingestion of the drug, the students felt a loss of control of impulse, experiencing huge manic episodes.

            Drugs can be very dangerous, and they affect every person a little different. It is impossible to predict how your body will react with a new drug, and some cases can be fatal. Despite this proposed danger, drug companies work each day to develop new and better drugs. So many prescriptions each year are given to patients who may not even need them. Some are then sold and abused, and can result in fatal situations. All of these drugs can kill you in high enough doses. Large amounts of people die each year from them. So is there possibly a safer alternative to vicodin? Xanex? These drugs are necessary for some cases, but are prescribed way too easily for symptoms that another, less harmful drug. Of course, I am referring to marijuana.

            While thousands of people each year die from accidental overdose of these manmade chemically engineered prescription drugs, millions of people in the United States alone smoke pot, and there has never been a recorded overdose of marijuana. Marijuana can help satisfy so many of the mild symptoms that other, more dangerous drugs are prescribed for. Why? I do not know, I see absolutely no reason in this. 

Blog_29

 I read an article titled “Taylor Swift: Combating Typical, Scandalous, Celebrity Behavior.” The article talks about how Taylor Swift, despite the celebrity spotlight, has managed to keep her peaceful life, unlike that of today’s typical, scandalous celebrities. She uses her music to try and reach out to the youth of America by setting a good personal example, which no other modern celebrities do. Swift sends a positive message to her audience with her lyrics in her songs as well. In her song Fifteen, she expresses her own good values being in the difficult position off a new high school girl. Most high school students are driven by relationships and sex, which plays a big role when in comes to establishing values and making decisions. Because humans learn about the world and establish their own set of values by watching and observing others, these kids probably aren’t making the best decisions. This is good new to all of her fans, because studies show that the effects that celebrities have on teens’ behavior, choices, and even morals have to do with who they look up to. With how available the media is today, kids are growing up idolizing celebrities rather than their own parents and family. This is very bad because of the obvious, immoral act that goes with being a celebrity (In most cases). I think it is great that there are still some sane, positive role models in the spotlight today. I love Taylor Swift and she is super Sexy.

Blog_28

My CP link isn’t working and I can’t log on, so I’m just going to blog about some more “Dollhouse.“ Well this show has literally got me hooked. I am well into the second season, and crazier stuff keeps happening. Right now, the active Alpha is on the loose, but Ecko is back safe in the Dollhouse. Alpha wants revenge from all of the clients who used Ecko, because he is in love with Ecko himself. He starts making arrangements with these old clients, and kills them before Ecko even arrives, so by the time that they get to the scene, the client is already dead. Alpha is a strait mad man.  He strapped a bunch of explosives to a man’s body on tope of a roof, and blasted him into nothingness. Personally, I think that is pretty sick. Well, he ends up breaking into the Dollhouse, and being the genius he is, used a device he created that imprinted something onto all of the Actives’ brains that tells them to kill each other. Now all of these Dolls are fighting to the death, and it’s very chaotic. Alpha goes strait for Paul, Ecko’s new handler, because he thinks that Ecko loves him. I did not see the rest of this episode, because I passed out while watching it last night. But the show is getting pretty sweet, and it is cool that Ecko now can remember all of her personalities. I think I can see how this is going to end up in the situation that the season finales are in, now that the imprints are so easy to tamper with and to do it remotely. 

Blog 24

            I do not yet have to scene that I am doing written out, but I am using a scene in this first season of Dollhouse. The scene is a flashback into Caroline’s life before she was put into the Dollhouse. She found out that the major drug company, Rossum, was using animals and possibly even humans to test out new drugs. When she breaks in, she is caught, and that it the reason she is sent into the Dollhouse. This scene has real world value, but I have not yet decided exactly what I want my real world example to be. There are too many examples of corrupt practices, and I still haven’t been able to choose the one that fits this scene the best. I suppose I will use the corruption of Tammy Hall in New York City. This relates quite well because they were a powerful, rich, political machine. When people, detectives, or cops tried to bring them down, they could not, for the machine was too powerful. They instead only had a choice of accepting bribes, which was they bet they could get out of the situation. Power such as the Tammy Hall political machine, and the Rossum corporation in Dollhouse, is very difficult to penetrate. Sometimes, there is nothing that you can do to stop these powers, which is displayed in Dollhouse, and many other corrupt political machines. Both of these situations are linked by one’s desire to do better, and the powerful barrier they need to overcome in order to gets what they want. Too bad that in most cases, as these two, the powerful political machine wins.

Blog_21

David Brin, an American science fiction writer, once said, “It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.” Everybody may not believe this quote, but I see truth in it. Each corrupt politician, CEO, or anybody who has power uses their position for personal gain. The reason that they strived to be in the position that they hold is their desire for power and wealth. Not everybody who gets in a position of power is corrupt though. Many people obtain these powerful positions because they love what they do, they are qualified for what they are to do, and to help make things better for the people whom they govern. The reason there is so much corruption is because many of the people who would do good things with power, the right things, don’t want the power. There are so many others things to gain and to want in this world, and unfortunately for us, the corruptible want power, and most of the sane don’t. This is very applicable to my paper, because the Rossum Corporation is involved in this corrupt business for absolute power (we find this out in the second season). Examples of the sane people are the people who run the Dollhouse. This may seem funny, but they want what is best for the actives, and they turn out to be good people. The Rossum Corporation plans to bring down the Dollhouse, after getting what they needed from it, to try an achieve power in the government. They do this by using the technology developed by the tech-guy to imprint a perfect senator who can get into a position of power. When this happens, the Rossum Corporation would have power in the government.

Blog_20

            I found an article called “Shrinking Government would Diminish Politicians’ Power,” to be quite interesting. The quote this article discusses is “Protect free speech without gutting public financial law.” This quote is an attempt to get rid of the kind of government we have today, one which is powered by money. The politicians to be elected are always extremely rich and powerful. The reason they are elected is because it is so easy to get their message out to the public. If you only see one person campaigning on the television, well chances are they will be the one that you are going to vote for. Not because they claim to have the policies that will fix everything, but simply because you know more about them than a politician who does not have enough money to get public attention. This is a major problem, because with this system, money pretty much rules everything. Why do people spend so much money just to get elected? With the power that comes with a high-ranking position, you can reward yourself and punish your enemies far too easily, which is a completely corrupt system. If you can money, you have power, but that isn’t the way that the government was meant to be. The only way to end this type of corruption is to level the financial playing field for all candidates, and all who would like to run for office. However, personally I don’t think this will ever be achieved. I feel that it is part of human nature to seek power, and very few people would put the people before themselves with such power.

Blog_15 Corruption in Detroits Government.

            I found an article that discusses a specific example of somebody in power exploiting his position for personal profit; in this case, it is a simple government bribe. The article is titled “Kilpatrick is Indicted in Criminal Ring.” Kilpatrick is now imprisoned, but is a former mayor of the city of Detroit.  Kilpatrick and a couple of his close aides used their positions to rig contracts, defraud taxpayers, and collect bribes. Ultimately they became pretty rich. The date of the article is 12/16/2010, and was published in the New York Times. This is the date when Kilpatrick was charged on 38 accounts of long-term crimes within his inner circle. The reason I feel that this article is of much importance is because the investigation to catch these crooks was started in 2004. This means that this criminal ring was ongoing for at least six years before they were stopped, stealing tens of millions of dollars from the city, as well as the people who live there. 2004 was only when the investigation started, so I feel it is safe to assume that their crimes were going on long before they drew attention from the federal government. Had you been a citizen of Detroit, money was being stolen from you, which you worked hard to get, and it would hardly be noticeable. This is a major problem because many people would overlook their taxes at the end of the year, so it would slide past in a subtle manner. Also nobody was their to monitor the mayor, at least with power over him, so he could do these criminal acts with great ease, and there is nothing an individual citizen could do about it. Corruption was put to an end in this case, but only after millions of dollars was lost to the hands of these politicians. 

Blog_14 Corruption article

            I decided to change the topic of my essay, to something easier for me to understand. I chose to research corruption in business. This relates extremely well to how Ecko actually got into the Dollhouse. Ecko saw that a major drug company was using various animals for inhumane testing of newly developed drugs. When she was caught, trying to get footage for the animals in cages, to bust to big drug company, the drug company turned her over to the Dollhouse, and made her the offer. This is because the major corrupt drug company funds the illegal human trafficking that goes on in the Dollhouse, and is fully aware of it. I read an article that was very similar, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/22/national/main3533284.shtml?source=related_story, and it is quite interesting. It is about a legitimate company that is supplying an illegal company with cars, plane tickets, hotels, and other services in order to help illegal aliens across the boarder.            

            The writer of Dollhouse is trying to make a science fiction connection with the real world, by exploiting a theme that is commonly overlooked in today’s society. There are multiple businesses in this article that help these aliens, which may open our eyes because that is only for a specific field. There must be a disgusting amount of corruption that goes on in every aspect of our lives, from a Federal government scale, to a local business scale, it is all around us. I am excited to see what other forms of corruption are out there for the public to see, and I wonder how much we can’t see.

Blog_13

I read the abstract of an article called Erasing Sensorimotor Memories via PKMζ Inhibition. I did not get much useful information out of this article, but just more confusing science that leads me to no confusion. This article discusses a method used to erase a rat’s memory. The rat learns something in the lab, and then is injected with some sort of protein, which does a lot of confusing stuff to the rat’s brain. After the rat ingests this substance, it then goes through the same task that it did previously. The rat takes the same amount of time to learn how to do this task as it did the first time, which indicates no memory retention about the specified task. After all of this research, I really would like to change my topic. Does anybody have any better ideas of which aspect of “Dollhouse” I should focus on, rather than the mind erasing and memory implanting part? I feel like I will never find anything useful about this, because it is such an unknown topic, and very confusing. I have found it very hard to find an article that is actually useful for this paper, so does anybody have any suggestions for another search engine or a sight with more in depth sources? Thanks!

Blog_11 Source 1

The way our brains and memories work have been a very difficult concept to understand, and we will probably never understand all of it. In the article European Journal of Neuroscience; Mar2011, Vol. 33 Issue 6, p1101-1114, 14p, 4 Charts, ways in which memories can be impaired are discussed. A recent breakthrough in this field has led to some more understanding about the way our minds work. The discovery of the de novo hippocampal production of neurons gives us a new actor in the role of memory process. These newborn adult neurons are very important in long-term memory retention, allocentric space representation, and for flexible inferential memory expression. New studies also show that they are responsible for spatiotemporal relationships among many environmental cues for flexible use of acquired information. This basically means that they help use information stored in your brain at appropriate times. All of this leads me to believe after several more years of research, it could be possible to take these newborn neurons, reduce production, and take away one’s ability to retain information, as well as access their memory. It is very scary to think that we know so much about our brains. If a method is developed to alter these neurons, or even stop them from producing, our memories very just might be able to be wiped. I do not know how to access more than the abstract of this article, which I found on the Thompson Library search engine, so if anybody could tell me how that would be great. I would like to read more up on implanting memories into ones brain, which seems a lot less likely than wiping memories.

Blog_10

            I would like to focus on the unethical doings that are practiced inside of the Dollhouse for my Analytical Research Paper. To do these I am going to concentrate most of my research on the type of practice that goes one to manipulate the clients into “Dolls.” The mind and body are two completely different things, and I would like to know if there is any kind of technology out there that can manipulate the mind as they do in the show. I am also going to do a lot of research on the history of tyrants, dictators, and kings in order to provide plenty of real world examples about what motivates people to put others in such situations. If I research the reasons why these people did what they did, I am very sure it will all come down to greed and personal gain. As for the technology itself, I believe it is quite possible to manipulate somebody’s mind, but not to the extent that they do in the show. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say that this kind of technology could be part of our actual future. As for the Doll’s, I still believe that they have souls and are actual people, just with no memory; they still do have hearts.

Work Cited

1.     Julie Koenig, Psychopharmacology; Mar2011, Vol. 214 Issue 2, p437-454, 18

2.     Richard Hoffman, Journal of Ethnopharmacology; Dec2010, Vol. 132 Issue 3, p554-563, 10p

3.     Mel Slater, PLoS ONE; 2010, Vol. 5 Issue 5, p1-9, 9p, 12 Color Photographs, 5 Charts, 2 Graphs

4.     Aaron Stebner, Acta Materialia; Apr2011, Vol. 59 Issue 7, p2841-2849, 9p

5.     Muriel Koehl, European Journal of Neuroscience; Mar2011, Vol. 33 Issue 6, p1101-1114, 14p, 4 Charts

Blog_9 ARP

For my Analytical Research paper, I want to focus on the moral issues of the entire series of “Dollhouse.” There are many things that go on in the show “Dollhouse” that could be considered unethical and against principle morals. The whole idea of the Dollhouse can be closely related to past events in our history including slavery, genocide, and the oppression of less powerful people. The story of the Dollhouse is a rich, underground company who take peoples lives, and sell them for lots of money; making them into super-humans by inserting select personality traits into them. The business is powered by one thing and one thing only, greed. Since the beginning of time people have been enslaved and used, for the profit of some greedy king, or dictator. We obviously see that these are major issues, and the show illustrates these reoccurring problems in a very interesting way. There is a powerful company, who uses animals and even humans for unethical testing of drugs, which I’m sure still happens somewhere in today’s world. They fund the Dollhouse, bribes the new clients with a lot of money, in order to agree to the terms. Ironically, these people sometimes agree because of their own greed, but others have no choice. People will do anything to get one up on each other, and anything for their own personal gain. I am not sure if I want to concentrate on the entire series, because it is such a general topic, but the show has a lot of meaning behind everything that goes on, I would like to watch a few more episodes to see if I can find anything specific that I would like to write about.

Blog_7 Highschool is Hell

“High School is Hell” is quite an interesting article. It’s main point is that as cultures change over time, so does the way in which we deal with fears, and express what is going on in our culture. In “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” metaphors such as vampires and monsters are used to represent actual problems and things that happen in a real high-school environment, obviously in a non-fiction way. Rather than having a show that shows directly what goes on in reality, this science fiction series mixes those actual problems and events with a fantasy story line, creating an entertaining program that demonstrates real problems of typical high school kids, in a subtle way. I think this is a very genius and creative how writers do these types of things, but it seems that there is always a message behind the plot, given that it is a good show. As times change, so does modern culture, and to be able to adapt to these changes and keep up with the demand of entertainment is very impressive. There are so many things to say about high school, and too many possible stories to tell. The writer generalizes the important aspects of life through a high school student, while adding in supposedly interesting science fiction, as a metaphor for the morals expressed in the show. Metaphors are sometimes more real than reality, for in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Buffy is the slayer and slays all of the vampires, but does so in context of a troubled high school girl with common everyday problems, like the rest of us.

Blog_6 Dollhouse

I watched the third episode in the first season of “Dollhouse,” but it wasn’t as good as the other episodes I have seen. Ecko this time is hired as a backup dancer, and her main job is to protect the lead singer, who is supposedly a target of a hit. The tour group hires a bunch of security guards and goes through a lot to keep the lead singer safe. Another person from the Dollhouse was hired as the lead singer, Rita’s, number one fan, who gets to hang out with her, as well as appear on stage. While this is going on, the Dollhouse is getting worried about exposing themselves to the public; what they are doing is extremely illegal. One private investigator isn’t making a lot of progress, but is determined to bring down the Dollhouse. He knows it exists, but nobody believes him and they think he is wasting his time. The owners of the Dollhouse (I still don’t know any of their names, or what they call themselves) are becoming aware of this investigator. The Boss-lady is extremely worried when she says, “Even a dumb dog can find a bone if it digs enough holes,” or something like that. Later in the episode, before Rita’s big concert, her and Ecko get into a fight, because Echo found out that somebody is trying to kill her onstage and Rita won’t have any of it. She thinks Echo is just trying to move her big moment. So sure enough they get on stage, and there is a sniper up above the audience. Right before he shoots, Ecko runs on stage and tackles Rita out of they way, just missing the shot. Everybody runs and panics out. The sniper got away, and took the Dollhouse girl, Rita’s number one fan, as a hostage. Well getting to the point, Ecko saves Rita’s life as well as the number one fan’s life by acting in a way that was not programmed into her. She acted to save the girls life, and she was only supposed to save Rita’s life, ironically by putting her in loads of danger. The Dollhouse people notice this, and the Boss-lady does not see it as a problem, but a positive part about their products. At the end, the other girl who was in on the job came over to greet her in the dollhouse, and Ecko nodded her off. They both know each other, but know it isn’t safe to act as friends, for that would be noticeable. 

Blog_5 Dollhouse

          I watched the second episode in the first season of Dollhouse, and I have to say it was very interesting. The main character, Ecko, is sold to this some man who wants to take her on an extreme day in the wilderness. Ecko was programmed to be very athletic, and was outdoing the guy in most everything they were doing. They went white water rafting, climbed gigantic rocks, and camped out in the forests. While hunting deer with a hooked up cross-bow, he told Ecko that his father used to pat his shoulder and say “Shoulder to the wheel,” and that he was a firm believer in survival of the fittest. If you can’t hunt down your pray and kill it, then you don’t deserve to eat it, and it deserves to live. If it cannot escape, then it doesn’t deserve to live. This was ironic because after he slept with her, things got intense. He gave her a twenty-minute head start, too run as far as she can, and he was going to hunt her with his bow. I have no clue why anybody in the world is that sick in the head, its disgusting to think about, but makes for an entertaining show. She finds a house in the middle of nowhere, and goes inside for refuge. She drinks a canteen of what she thinks is water, but it is actually some kind of poison that makes her trip out. She ends up surviving because then man who is supposed to be watching over her comes with two guns to save her. They kill the crazy outdoorsman, and finally Ecko goes back to her treatment. There is a private investigator who is getting more and more clues about the dollhouse, and the strange, dangerous things that are happening around Ecko are not helping out with keeping the Dollhouse quiet. The crazy part about this episode is that at the end, she said that she remembered the guy she was watching over her, and well as bits and pieces of other things. She was hallucinating about old memories of herself that were supposedly whipped away, and she is starting to get a feel for what’s going on

Blog_4 Dollhouse S1E1

            The Dollhouse is a place where they wipe away your memories and use you for special jobs, which seems pretty crazy. After watching the first episode of the first season, now I actually understand the concept of the show, and I think it’s a very good show. The main character’s name is Ecko, and the episode started with her having a great time with the man she with who I made out to be her significant other. She willingly goes to her what she thinks is some sort of treatment, and her memory is wiped away. I would like to know what kind of treatment she thinks she is going to receive each time before she goes through with it, because she is never skeptical about it. Ecko wonders off to the room where they admit new people, and witnesses them “working” on a woman, who appears to be in pain. They talk to her like she is a five year old, and everybody else too. Each person in the Dollhouse is extremely spaced out, listening to everything the workers say without questioning. The purpose of this house is to use people’s personalities and put them all together on hard drives, then to upload these super personalities into the people. They then sell these people to do crazy jobs for a lot of money. Some rich guy, whose daughter had been kidnapped, hires Ecko to serve as a special negotiator. The Dollhouse downloaded all of the necessary traits to be the best person for the job into her mind, so she is essentially a puppet. The kidnappers want 10 million dollars, and upon the transaction to return the little girl, she knows that he won’t give the girl back. The kidnappers fled, but Ecko knew where too. The Dollhouse figures that Ecko failed, so she is sent for her treatment.  Surprisingly after the treatment, Ecko remembers everything and is still able to save the girl; which introduces the concept that she may have some sort of ability to retain her memory. Rather she can retain her actual life or just the ones that had recently been loaded into her brain, I don’t know. But I will definitely continue watching this show, quite enjoyable.