Vocabulary on decline due to fewer books

I found this article to be very interesting and true.  I found it shocking that primary education vocabulary programs are being "dumb" down because today's current youth can't comprehend or keep up.  Personally, I don't read as much as I should and I often dread having to reading assignments for classes.  However, I can see the importance of having a good vocabulary and speaking properly, especially in a professional setting.  Here in Hawaii, a large portion of the population speaks pidgin.  I was raised to use proper English despite having been born and raise here.  Some of my coworkers had the opposite upbringing, mixing pidgin terms with English and interchanging them subconsciously.  While it is important to embrace a culture, I think it is also important to exhibit judgement on when it is appropriate to use the national norm.

The Cove

I had watched The Cove about a month ago on Animal Planet.  I had heard of the Japanese slaughtering dolphins for their meat, but the documentary brought new insight to how barbaric the "tradition" actually is.  The town of Taiji seemed like something out of "The Twilight Zone," with monuments celebrating aquatic life and buildings painted with murals of smiling dolphins and whales, despite the fact that for a few months out of the year, they slaughter tens of thousands of dolphins.  Interestingly enough, the manufacturers claim this particular method of killing dolphins is a "tradition," while many Japanese people in Tokyo have never heard of such a custom.  This "tradition" is also used for capturing dolphins for use in theme parks and various captivity venues.  The crusader against these killings is Ric O'Barry, who actually began the trend of aquatic captivity for human entertainment.  I feel for this guy.  He talks about how he held the dolphin used in "Flipper" while she took her last breath and sunk to the bottom of the tank.  I feel bad saying this, but watching this documentary sort of made me feel ashamed to be Japanese.  To think that these people could just brutally slaughter possibly the most intelligent creature on Earth is upsetting.

Transgenic Fish Go Large

http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2010/09/20/genetically-modified-salmon/

Personally, I find genetic modification of food somewhat disturbing.  Scientist claim that the foods are completely safe, but it seems that as foods become more and more modified, they lose nutritional content (ie tomatoes and Chiquita bananas).  Sure, it'll be profitable for the companies to mass produce salmon in a shorter amount of time and the price of farm-raised salmon will decrease, but are those really more important than the health of the consumers?  Today on CNN.com, a similar article was posted, talking about the questions and concerns over the growth hormones that are gonna be given to these GMO fish.  After the article, there was a poll over how many people would eat the fish.  46.55% would never eat the fish, 15.78% would eat it in a heartbeat, and 10.89% would eat it if the FDA approves it.  I also find it interesting that with an increase in the use of hormones and pesticides in our food, there also seems to be an increase in cases of cancer, massive outbreaks of diseases and bacteria, and other serious health issues.  Just a thought...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkWQEKxoX_M

A Dimmer View of Earth

Hearing about a lack in funding and interest in the environment during the Bush administration has started to sound like a broken record.  The truth of the matter is that a large portion of lobbyist and supporters during George W. Bush's presidential election/re-election campaign were comprised of a large group of oil corporations with an invested interest in protecting and ensuring that their business would not be disrupted by the government and that the government would issue regulations or acts that would benefit them.  The United States has a strong influence on other countries, however, our government chooses to direct this power towards military dominance and the global ambassador of democracy.  If our country enacted policies on preserving the environment and making regulations towards limiting our pollution output in a way that affects other countries, I feel that they would follow in our footsteps.  However, in reality, it seems as though unless a catastrophic event occurs that impacts our country in a way that is undeniably related to climate change and how our actions directly contributed to it, our government will continue to fail to do anything.

Post #1

The first class of ANTH 3115 has been an interesting start to a new semester.  I can say that I'm quite excited to go on the various required fields.  Its so hard to choose just a few, although I'm leaning towards one at the Halawa Heiau just because it's really close for me.  I'm also interested in going to Mokauea Island and possibly Kahana Valley.  Kahana Valley seems like a fun experience, and I think it'll bring back memories of cleaning and planting taro in the lo'i that my elementary school had.