blog # 21

Rowling, J.K, . Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. New York, America: Bloomsbury, 1999. 223. Print.

            Sometimes it’s not what is inside a person that counts.  A lot of the time, the defining factor of a person is the actions they take.  The saying “actions speak louder than words” is an accurate statement, meaning that it doesn’t matter who a person is, they’re actions will show who they really are.  In one of the most famous series of al time, Harry Potter, a main character, Dumbledore, states "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”  This statement was pertaining to Harry’s ability to speak parstle-tongue.  Harry was worried that he was becoming Voldemorte because he shared many of the same qualities as Voldemorte.  But Dumbledore reassures him that it is not what abilities he has (like speaking parstle-tongue) but rather how he uses his abilities.  The same is true with the characters in Firefly.   Each of the characters have the same abilities, but who they are is defined by what they do with their abilities.  Both the crew and the mayor have the ability to do the wrong thing, and both choose to do the right, moral thing. Niska has the ability to forgive but he chooses to hold a grudge and punish them later in the series.  If what Dumbledore said was true, then we can safely assume that the crew and the mayor are good people due to their choices and we can also assume that Niska is  bad man when we observe his choices too.  Overall, it is important to remember the words that the beloved Dumbledore said and to keep that in mind when making decisions. 

blog # 20

Schwartz, Barry.  The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less.  New York: HarperCollins, 2004.  Print.  

In the episode Train Heist , of the TV series “Firefly,” there are many decisions and choices being made.  The main characters Mal and Zoe have to make a decision between money and a clear conscience.   The mayor of the town where the train heist was taking place had to choose between forgiveness and punishment.  And Niska also had to choose between punishment and forgiveness.  In the end, Mal and Zoe undoubtedly choose to return the goods and wipe their conscience, the mayor chooses to forgive their mistakes but Niska chooses not to forgive them and later in the series the crew sees these repercussions unfold when he takes Mal hostage and tortures him.  Barry Schwartz talks about choices in his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less.   He says, “Healthy people want and need to direct their own lives, (3).  This is an important statement because without choice, we are not free to do as we please and we are essentially slaves.  With choice, we have the freedom to choose the options that are true to ourselves.  Through the choices we make, it shows people’s true intentions.  In the episode, when Mal and Zoe decide to return the goods, it shows that they have a softer side (even if it doesn’t always show).  When the mayor decided to forgive their mistakes, it showed that he was a fair and honest individual.  However, Niska’s actions showed his awful, hateful side and that is the difference between good and bad. 

blog # 19

Chang, un-Juang, Gregory A. Davis, Sarah J. MacNaughton, John R. Stephen, Albert D. Venosa, , , and David C. White. Microbial Population Changes during Bioremediation of an Experimental Oil Spill.  Applied and Environmental Microbiology.  65.  (1999): 3566-3574.  Print. 

Some mistakes are impossible to fix.  After oil spills, it is hard to recover the environment and make it how it once was. Even if rescue groups were to clean the marshes and coasts, they would still be removing much-needed nutrients in the process.  In an experiment conducted at the Center for Environmental Biotechnology, at the University of Tennessee, in Knoxville, Tennessee, where plots were treated with non-oil, oil alone, oil plus nutrients and oil plus nutrients plus indigenous inoculum.  The results were significant.  The environments introduced to oil developed a certain type of bacteria whereas non-oil environments did not.  This evidence shows that the oil in the environment causes new bacteria to grow.  According to the Applied and Environmental Microbiology Journal, “microbial community structures of the oiled plots were becoming similar to those of the unoiled controls from the same time point, but DGGE analysis suggested that major differences in the bacterial communities remained,” (n.p.)  Fromt his we can infer that in some respects, environments introduced to oil can sometimes fix themselves.  But most of the time these oil spills will permanently damage an environment.  This can be seen in the show, Firefly,  because sometimes, the crew’s mistakes are forgiven (or fixed) and sometimes they are not.  The sheriff forgives the crew’s actios, and Niska, the crime lord, did not forgive them.  This is a good example of the choices people can make concerning situations and how their choices can reveal their character. 

Blog #17

“Topped the chain of command on the Deepwater Horizon rig. Took risks to lower costs. Cut corners on testing cement. Failed to implement safety measures like an acoustic switch. Misled about its ability to prevent spills in deep water. Overruled crew objections on day of explosion. Grossly underestimated the rate of the spill.”

List of words: cut corners, failed to implement safety measures, misled about its ability to prevents spills, overruled crew objections, and grossly underestimated the rate of the spill

In every major catastrophe in history, there is always someone to pin the blame on.  Even if the person (or business) is not solely responsible for it, it helps to understand and make sense of the situation.  In a way, it helps people cope with it and perhaps prevent it from happening again.  A good example of this would be the Bp oil spill that occurred in August of 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico.  Obviously, the majority of the blame is placed upon Bp’s shoulders.  According to Grist, a Green Paper, Bp cut corners, failed to implement safety measures, was misleading about its ability to prevent spills, overruled crew objections, and grossly underestimated the rate of the spill (n.p.).  This means that the oil spill could have been completely avoided if stronger materials would have been used and if they would have taken their responsibility to protect the environment more seriously.  And if not avoided, they could have dealt with the situation in a timelier manner.  Although BP made a mistake, there are some redeeming qualities about the institution.  They worked tirelessly for the next months to clean up this spill and that is a very commendable act.  This is similar to what Mal and Zoe did in Train Heist, because they made mistakes but they worked very hard to amend those mistakes.  Although the mistake was a huge one in both cases, both individuals tried hard to fix this mistake by reversing their impact.  

Blog # 14

Thomas Havrilesky (1989) Those Who Only Remember the Past May Be Doomed to Repeat Its Mistakes. Journal of Forensic Economics: December 1989, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 23-28.

The quote is: ‘Those Who Only Remember the Past May Be Doomed to Repeat Its Mistakes”

I think this is a good quote to consider because I’m exploring the fact that humans have made mistakes in the past and that the only way to move on from those mistakes is to forgive and learn from it.  The crew of Serenity is a perfect example of this because they DO make a mistake by stealing the medicine away from the town, but they learn from it because for the rest of the series, they always ask what it is they are stealing before they steal it.  I think Joss Whedon did an excellent job of balancing the good and bad of the characters aboard the Serenity.  He made these people crooks and wanted people running from the law and that would make anyone assume that these people were not good in spirit and were evil.  But in contrast they are actually the fairest and good willed of anyone you meet in the series.  Most people who work for the Alliance are corrupt and harsh, enforcing their power quite eagerly over the civilians.  I think Joss Whedon is trying to make a point that sometimes, the majority can be wrong and that they can be power mad.  Overall, I think the characters are doing the right thing by taking back the even if it causes them trouble later in the series and I think they learned not to make the same mistake twice.

blog # 13

Henry E. Palmer, The Lawrence Raid Kansas Historical Collections 6 (1900): 317, at 322-323.

The year was 1863, during the Civil war.  Grant was practicing something called hard war.  Before 1863, the war was considered a “soft war,” where opposing sides thought the war wasn’t going to last for a long time.  That is, until Grant came to power.  Hard war is when the opposing sides will continue to attack a fallen side until there was no possible way for them to come back and fight anymore.  In 1863, there were these people called cloth sellers, who were predominantly Jewish.  At this time, smuggling was illegal and these cloth sellers smuggled cloth to the north so that they could make profits during the war.  Therefore, they were basically working for the black Market.  Grant’s father tried to make a deal with these cloth sellers so that he could maybe turn a profit.  Grant found out about this and got upset that his father was breaking the law and sent out an order to evict all JEWISH residents from four counties in Missouri: Independence, Hickman Hills, Pleasant Hill, and Harrisonville.  Grant made the mistake to associate all Jewish people with these cloth sellers.  This is the first time in American history that a specific group of people were target and forced to move out.  When Lincoln hears about this, he takes away this order and the people are allowed to move back in.  But basically, after this the Jews forgive him for this and it shows that there ARE people in the world who have a heart big enough to forgive.

blog # 12

 Forgiveness: Letting go of Grudges and Bitterment.  Mayo Clinic, n.d. Web.  10 April 2011.

According to the Mayo Clinic, forgiveness is important. Harboring resentment for years can cause someone to be permanently afflicted.  “By embracing forgiveness, you embrace peace, hope, gratitude and joy.”  One of the benefits to forgiveness is less stress and hostility, which consequently leads to lower blood pressure.  This is physical reason to forgive people.  The reason why I am talking about this is because in the episode, Train Heist of the series “Firefly,” the crew of the Firefly  are asked to do a job and do the job without out asking questions, only to realize they were stealing form people who really needed the stolen goods.  The stolen goods turned out to be medicine and once the crew realized this, they decided to return the goods.   I think two extraordinary things happened: 1) the crew decided to not earn the money and return the medicine.  2) the sheriff decided not to punish the crew for stealing the goods in the first place because he forgave them.  It takes a big man to forgive and the sheriff of the town obviously had a big heart and a caring personality to recognize that the crew made a mistake and that they were sorry for it.  The way that the sheriff knew that they were sorry because the crew made the effort to come back and return the goods, an action the sheriff appreciated.  This makes me hopeful that in the future (even if this is nothing like the future) someone else believes that good people will still exist.