Final Exam

Around the world people have different morals and standards for what food they will consume. Some people eat types of meat like cows, pigs, dogs and rabbits- but there are also people who will not eat any meat products nor drink milk from a cow. We cannot forget about people who eat poultry and fish, drink milk, but do not eat red meat( example. cow meat, pig meat). Along with that, some people do not eat any meat or fish, but will consume milk products. As you can see, there are many variations to the basic carnivores, omnivores, herbivores diets. People consume whatever they want to consume- they consume what is convenient, “whatever is in front of me and tastes good”(1) say Sean Bostrom, a Student at Norton High School. Some students like Nicole LaCouture believes “we all[her family] eat meat, we all do it and it would be difficult to stop”(2). So why do people switch, when do people decide to change from eating meat products and pursue a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle?
Some people find that they have intolerance to meat and animal products. It is possible to be allergic to meat, and milk(ex. lactose intolerant people cannot consume milk products). Along with people who can physically not consume animal products, people decide to stop eating meat after they discover the hidden health risks from eating mysterious meat. Lauren Erikson, a vegan who sometimes “cheats” said she made the switch after reading a book that enlightened her- “the book was trying to show how people in America suffer from some of the illnesses that we do by comparing us to china, who eat far less meat”(3). There have been numerous reports of illnesses from lack of quality meat; many people have been seriously injured or lost their lives due to meat industries not properly taking care of their products. Along with that, another common reason people remove meat from their diet is because they have seen the torture the animals go through. Most people are blind to how food ends up on their plates. Media has tried to challenge the food industries as much as possible, but many companies have strict tolerance of investigation- for the few books, websites, and movies that were allowed to be published- it showed to viewer how brutal the meat industry is. P.E.T.A (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the poster-child of animal protection believing “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way”(4), has played a big role of revealing how animals are treated around the world. They use compelling (usually video) evidence to show the viewer exactly how the slaughter of animals happen. After that, many people find it hard to continue supporting big meat industries.
In conclusion, the switch from a carnivore lifestyle to a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle is brought by curiosity. People are blind to how certain products end up as the food they eat, and they are blind to what is inside of that food. Once people begin to question what is common, they discover it is not what it seems to be. Adapting to a vegan lifestyle is not easy but people are making the switch because they physically have to, for their own health, or for ethical reasons.


Bibliography


1. Bostrom, Sean. Personal interview. January 16, 2014.


2. LaCouture, Nicole. Personal interview. January 16, 2014.


3. Erikson, Lauren. Personal interview. January 20, 2014.

4. www.peta.org

Self-deprecation

In Order: Most Annoying to Least Annoying

Negative Nancys:

Everyone knows a person who has something bad to say about everything and everyone; as Saturday Night Live says, a Negative Nancy.  I, personally, find these people to be the most frustrating people to be around. Sometimes they get on my nerves so bad  to the point I want to grab them and violently shake them until happiness flows from there face- but I can’t because that is impossible.

Texting…:

Most of the time its hard to comprehend peoples crazy questionable abbreviation to quicken texting, like “this is awk rn ill tlk to u tn”. Once you get the basics it actually does save a lot of time but nothing bothers me more than people who do not remove letters, but replace them- for example “sowwy” instead of “sorry” and “wiff” instead of “with”. They contain the same amount of letters, therefore taking the same amount of time to type. So there is no point.

Dumb Drivers:

Being newly licensed, I have very little experience on the road and I make mistakes- like blatantly cutting people off or scaring people half to death because i’m driving on the left side of the road- but if I do so I’ll give someone an apologetic wave before I go along. Nothing bothers me more than people on the road who cannot drive decent to save their life. Everyone would agree that putting your blinker on after you have already stopped is pointless, tailgating is rude, and texting while driving is DUMB- what really grinds my gears is when that person looks at you and looks away… No acknowledgement that that person’s distractions and stupidity made me uncomfortable and quite frustrated. Not even a wave. I understand we all make mistakes, but come on,  show you have some remorse.

Temporary Vegetarians:

Being a liberal vegetarian, it comes up in topic more than I want sometimes... other people tell me about their lifestyle choice- either being vegan, vegetarian, or a proud carnivore. On occasion ( I think a total of three times in my life) people tell me they are a vegetarian “in the summer” or “until they see a hot dog”. These people leave me dumbfounded.

Summer Vacation

          As we move along the school year, where summer always seems to be just around the corner, we question if the set up for our past agricultural life is appropriate. The summer we've all come to love is not very organized for kids educational development. If we broke up the long three month summer vacation into separate vacations throughout the school year, the possibilities for improvement would be endless. Over the summer, months of education is lost simply because the skills are not practiced. Yes summer classes are offered in most states- but the less privileged a child is, the more likely the child is to loose even more education.  If we broke up summer and allowed a week off (or even more) every month, children would not only be less stressed out because they know there is always a break coming, the educational development would increase steadily without a decrease. Although our generation is accustomed to summer, its not the best thing for our society.

My Album Review

Parkway Drive- Atlas
Rating- 5/5

           Parkway drive is a Australian metalcore band similar to Underoath and Nine Inch Nails, but Parkway Drive is not comparable to any other band. The talent each band member has carries the band to a level of their own. Lead singer, Winston McCall is the mastermind behind the structure and creativity that Parkway Drive has lived up too- and Atlas is no let down. With new instruments, new sense of organization, and a whole new point of view- Parkway Drive's most recent album's uniqueness makes it a pure peice of art.
      Atlas focuses on the album as a whole more than each individual song- they didn't just make a bunch of songs, they created a story. The acoustic intro "Sparks" causes some controversy within many fans- they miss the extreme heaviness the band has drifted away from, like in the album Killing With a Smile and Horizons- but the rest of the album is not far from their old flare. the next song to play is "Old Ghosts/ New Regrets" which not only has heavy drops that all original Parkway fans love, it has meaning to the band. The song is straight forward, angry, heavy music with meaningful lyrics relating to human detachment with the enviroment. Throughout the album there are many more heavy and acoustic song that carry huge meaning to the band and how they feel towards the world. The band even goes a step father to create a movie off of on of the "most important", says Winston,  songs to the whole band- Home is For the Heartless. Atlas was an album that Parkway Drive worked on for a very long time, and put a lot into, and created a whole new image that they deserve recognition for.

Holiday Spending

Its obvious how much we spend towards each holiday is a huge amount of money, but I do not think it is a problem. People are spending how much they feel comfortable spending, even if at the end there is 127.87 billion spent on Christmas alone, no one will buy their way into debt. It is terrible to think people are suffering from homelessness, disease, and hunger in the world and we are spending billions on decorations only for seasonal use, novelties/gifts, and excessive amounts of food- but people are accustomed to this way. Holidays are a time for the family and togetherness and basically just something to do. Lets face it, America would not have the same culture if we did not celebrate Halloween or winter holidays. The decoration, costly as they are, brings happiness to people. Its amazing to imagine what would do if we took Christmas off and donated all that we could to every organization and donation fund possible, but we cannot change all of America's close nit traditions.

Album Reviews

Brand New- The Devil and God Are Raging inside me
Reviewed by: RamInGoreville (01/04/09) 
rate- Positive 90%
"Following their 2003 sophomore attempt Deja Entendu, Brand New finally released their well anticipated third album, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, at the end of 2006. Fans were expecting something remarkable after the success of the last album, but were in for a surprise."..."Despite the dark and incomplete feel, The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me somehow managed to still become a simply beautiful album, which is definitely expected from Brand New."

Brand New- The Devil and God Are Raging Inside me Reviewed by: Iain Forrester(11/27/06) rate- Mixed 50%

"The songs don’t quite stack up. The looser structures and reliance on instrumentals give Jesse Lacey less room to maneuver and his biting lyrical insight is often missed. He still conjures up arresting images (“drop me a line with a hook and some raw bleeding bait” in “Luca,” “Limousine”’s chilling “It's your day to wed / We found your man / He's drinking up / He's all-American / And he'll drive”) but they rarely add up to coherent songs—and nothing consistently cuts to the bone like Deja Entendu’s highlights."


Bring Me the Horizon- Sempiternal 
 Reviewed by: UG Team(4/1/13)
rating-Positive 8.2
"Now with the release of "Sempiternal" I'm really enjoying what I hear, but not everyone will. They no longer have a rhythm guitarist, though Lee Malia does remain on lead guitar. There is much more keyboard/synth thanks to the addition of Jordan Fish. They still have a predominantly "metalcore" sound, but they have added in a lot of ambient passages in their songs and have minimized the heavy breakdowns. The vocals don't get anywhere near a death metal growl on this new album. There is actually occasionally a little bit of melody (just a touch) in their songs which hasn't really been there before now. To me, this release is so far away from where Bring Me The Horizon started you have to listen to it fresh to really appreciate what it is and what they're doing." 


Deadmau5- 4x4=12
Review by- Dave SImpson (12/2/10)
Rating- Mixed 6.0
"His third production compilation again shows that he is a master at doing simple electro house music very well: humongous beats and basslines blend with straightforward chord progressions and, when interest may start to lag, sonic diversions. "

The Dirty Heads- Any Port in a Storm
Review by- Unknown (4/8/12)
Rating- Negative (not an exact number rating)
"But instead of focusing entirely on reggae infused rap, The Dirty Heads gets distracted by rock music, more specifically mainstream rock music. In turn, they become dull and boring, too afraid to experiment"..."For the first 14 tracks, Any Port in a Storm disappoints, wasting opportunities by writing mainstream rock songs. "

Black Veil Brides- The Story of the Wild Ones
Review by- Grace Duffy (1/4/13)
Rating-Negative 6
"Well, this is obviously not Social Distortion meets Metallica. Not that we ever expected it to be. I don’t mean to imply that I approached this album with anything other than an open mind, but I will admit that as a band Black Veil Brides puzzle me. They’ve deliberately manufactured themselves to be the ready targets of hatred and ridicule from that calibre of fandom that insists on one looking and sounding a certain way in order to be taken seriously."...". One could applaud their imaginations or their ideas if they actually offered anything new or interesting, but they don’t, which makes them somewhat doomed to be known as that band put together from the leftovers of Eric Draven cosmetics and Aiden’s discarded wardrobe. I’m tempted to praise the idea for Wretched and Divine, if only because few bands in their genre seem to have hit upon something as wantonly grandiose as this, but the sad truth is that there’s nothing worth celebrating here. "

2 truths and a lie

Laser beard trimmer

 In Berlin, an engineering and electronic company, Philips, has changed the future of men shaving. Recently they introduced the Beard Trimmer 9,000. It has a built-in laser guide for precise shaving. The reversible trimmer is also water-resistant, which allows for easy cleaning.

Nasal Ranger

Resembling a telescope in shape and purpose, the Nasal Ranger is used to detect and measure smells. It allows the operator to compare the odor to fresh air through the help of a carbon filter. The odors are measured in a ratio called dilution-to-origin. For people who want to visualize their odor data, the creators of the product include an ODOR TRACK'R to map out the smells.

Mood Lenses

It has been announced that a childhood favorite is being merged with a new trend. Did you ever have a mood ring when you were young? Maybe a mood necklace or potentially even a bracelet. You've probably stopped wearing them by now. But if you want to put a classic twist on your new and older look, Heat sensitive color-changing contacts are scheduled to be sold on coolglow.com, a large seller of novelty contatcs. The same substances found on the surface of mood rings is being thinned enough to put onto contact lenses, providing a stunning effect that is both subtle and bold at the same time.