Into the Wild: The River

Chris endured sixty-seven days in the wild when he realized that the gentle knee-deep creek he had easily crossed had became way deeper due to the rain and snowmelt from glaciers high in the Alaska Range. Throughout the novel we see how strong of a man Chris is and how much he goes through on his journey, and this really symbolizes how he's just a man. People aren't perfect and no one can do "everything" right, we all have our flaws, imperfections, and our fears. Some people can control their fears better than others.

We come to learn that Chris isn't a good swimmer and that the Teklanika had went from a creek to a whitewater river. Chris is in fact afraid of the water. He believed that he would've been pulled into the rapids long before he could've swam across the river.

Chris wrote in his journal, "Disaster…. Rained in. River look impossible. Lonely, scared." He felt that he would've died if he attempted to cross the river. On page 170 it describes that Chris could've possibly mad it across the river before going into the rapids or catching hypothermia, if he dog-paddled and hopped along the bottom as he drifted downstream.

This is a real turning point in the novel because now Chris really begins to see that he may get stuck in the wild and that he can't leave whenever he wants. This is when reality wakes him up from this beautiful landscape and he realizes that this is the wild, where he has gone unprepared for the worst which is coming upon him.

Into the Wild: Chris and I

Chris McCandless was a man who loved an adventure to say the least. He saw the worst in society, and the best in some people. On his way to Alaska, he touched a lot of people's lives. When he got too close, he had to leave an continue the journey he set forth upon. Not only did he want to live in the wild alone, but he went unprepared and knew that there was a chance he wouldn't come back. It's unfortunate that he wasn't able to come back after he had learned so many lessons about life. As he said "Happiness only real when shared."If he thought this way before he left, he may have not gone to Alaska and/or if he did he may have not gone alone. 

I have a few things in common with Chris, one is that I too love a great adventure. Chris loved to tell stories of his life and as I filmmaker I can really relate to his passion to not only tell stories, but live them as well.

Chris went through a lot of stress when he found out that his dad was living two separate lives, I have divorced parents but I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to figure out that your dad secretly has another family with another woman.

I feel like what Chris did was selfish in a way because he didn't just leave his family and friends by going to Alaska, but he didn't go prepared and he went alone. There was nothing safe about what he did   and he knew that and would likely come to regret it in the end.

     Chris didn't like the way society was and he was a very smart young man. I wish he could've had a greater desire to influence others because I feel that he had the potential to become a very successful writer. In the book and the movie you see how much of an impact he had on those that he encountered on his way to Alaska and he had the potential to make an impact on people at a much larger scale if he didn't go "Into the Wild".

     I feel like I connect with Chris's concerns about society, but unlike Chris I want to share my views with others as much as I can, that's one reason why I want to become a filmmaker and I just wish that chris realized that happiness is only real when it's shared before he left so that his life lessons didn't cost him his life.

Family Values Decreasing as Technology is on the Rise

With technology on the rise people have been spending more time checking their e-mails and less time keeping in touch with their family. The love is still there, but the appreciation of being together isn't as strong as it use to be. When you only see your family over the holidays, you realize how different things are now than they use to be.                                                                                                                                                                                             When text messaging while driving became illegal because it was such a common cause for accidents, people should have realized how obsessive we've become to using our phones and computers.

Watching T.V. use to be something special, it use to be a family event that happened once a night. Now people watch multiple shows everyday and it's not "special" anymore and it's definitely not the family event it once was.

People are spending less time together in person and are spending more time signed into Facebook updating their status. Sure Facebook helps people stay in touch, but when you're checking your page under the dinner table or under a desk in class you know that it's consuming a lot of your time and attention.

If people weren't so obsessed with their virtual self their would be less time on the computer and the phone and they would give more attention to their family around them.




     They say that your family is always there for you. Some may say that's not true and that their social networks are always there for them, but they are wrong. They are always there to be on their social network. You can't replace the love of your family by having over 1,000 friends on Facebook. When it comes down to it, your best friends and your family are supporting you and they deserve to have your attention and time more than your electronic devices.

Global Warming, Things are Heating Up

Global warming is the most import problem that mankind has ever faced, the future of the world is in our hands.

This growing issue is acknowledged but the sense of urgency is not there, and it needs to be in order for us to make the drastic changes needed to preserve what life we have left on earth.

Politicians like Paul Ryan argue that global warming doesn't exist, but pictures don't lie and they represent how REAL global warming is and how serious of an issue it is as well.

I don't know how much clearer the message can be, there's no denying the fact that if we don't make a change that Al Gore is right when he said, "What we take for granted might not be here for our children."

The world needs to acknowledge that global warming should be our top priority. Over the last nine years approximately 4,500 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq. War is expected to have it's share of casualties.

 If these pictures weren't strong enough evidence for people to take global warming seriously, you would think that the European heat wave of 2003 that killed nearly 35,000 people would make people think twice about the reality of global warming.

 All around the world there is snow and ice melting faster than ever before. What we're seeing is a decrease in the amount of glaciers which elevates our sea level. If this continues there will eventually be no more ice in the world, fresh water supplies will become scarce, and some of are favorite places in the world will be under water.

So you're probably asking yourself, how did we get in this mess, but more importantly how will we get out of it?

There's a few things we need to take a look at before we can jump into the solution.

A major contributor to global warming is the amount of carbon we emit, there are more people in the world than ever before now and cars, trains, and airplanes are being used more than ever as well.

Our carbon emission is building up greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, which are trapping solar radiation within our atmosphere. Thus, our world is becoming hotter and hotter.

Our biggest problem lies within going from a competitive market to a cooperative market. We need to stop doing what makes the most money and start working on using products that make the world a better place.  

Instead of pumping gas into all of our cars and releasing tons of carbon, we could be using biomass fuels.

What's biomass fuels?

Any plant or animal matter used to produce energy is biomass. Biomass fuels are renewable and widely available, most importantly they are carbon-neutral. Not to mention that the production of biomass fuels can provide employment in the rural areas.

There are so many different alternative sources of energy that we can use that will reduce the expansion of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere.

There's the power of the sun, the wind, and water.

Windmills have been used for a while, but if they can become more mainstream and common it will only help the fight to contain global warming from causing more damage to the world we inhabit.

Solar panels are becoming more common and are now often seen on top of houses, but they can be used more too. Solar panel cars are very rare, but they are better for the environment then the cars most of us drive.

Still we see that there are alternative sources of energy and that we can utilize them more than we are now. Technology has been advancing rapidly, hopefully our efforts to reduce the greenhouse affect and the expansion of global warming advance rapidly as well.

We need more people to contribute to the effort of resolving global warming and in order for us to provoke this change, we must act collectively and let our voices be heard and our actions be seen.

What Race are You? ... The Human Race

What is race?

Race is a cultural method of classifying human biological variation.

Race is not a biologically valid or meaningful concept, yet race is a powerful social construction that varies from society to society.

     Racism may not be as common as it once was, but it still exists. Some people simply carry the beliefs that were passed on to them by their parents and so forth. Science has proven that everyones DNA is over 99% the same, yet racism still survives. You may find yourself asking why is race still a big part of our culture. One major reason is because the media hasn't changed still depicts differences between race and it shows in their depiction of their characters.

     Stereotypes live on in TV shows and in their ads, with "target audiences." If you look at the Brady Bunch and the Prince of Bel-Air you can see huge differences in the plots of the episodes and the writing, as in the dialogue of the families. Both families are successful, but they have different "family" values and they speak to each other very differently. Even their opening songs and intros are completely different, and even though it may be a different time period you can look at other family shows and compare them to one another.

     In one episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Will needs to work with kindergartners to get enough credits to graduate high school, this is something you would never see in the Brady Bunch show. Their stories aren't as radical, for example the Brady Bunch might be looking for a lost dog while Will is trying to prove to his uncle that he is a man and should be treated like one.

    Until George Lopez had his show, I never heard of a tv show about a hispanic family. I've still yet to see a show about an asian family. There are a lot of stereotypes out there and there's also a lot of ethnicities and races not being represented equally on television.

     I'm not saying that there is some specific way to get rid of racism and these stereotypes, but if we get the media to stop portraying this division of races we will be taking a step in the right direction. By getting TV shows to portray how people are similar to one another rather than how they different, we will be giving kids a more positive message that there is no race besides the human race.

Next time you see one of these show ask yourself two things, is this giving a positive representation of people in general or is this simply another source of media contributing to the stereotypes of different races?

 

Phil Collins says in one of his songs "Two worlds, one family," he may have wrote that for Disney's Tarzan movie, but I still think we should live in one world with one family and we shouldn't let anything get in the way of making that a reality.

 

 

The Grey: Movie Review

     The Grey is about John Ottway (Liam Neeson), who snipes wolves in Alaska to protect oil workers. He goes on an airplane with a bunch of the workers who are going home, but they crash in the middle of the wilderness. John takes charge of the survivors who are stranded in the woods, where the wolves are at the top of the food chain.
     
     This movie wasn't great or amazing, but it was really good for a suspense/thriller movie. I liked the plot, the hunters became the hunted, and I found this movie to actually have some symbolism. There's a note that he keeps with him, it's the item of significance, but I can't tell you more. You will just have to see the movie to find out.
    
     I definitely recommend this movie to someone who likes action/suspense movies. Liam Neeson, as usual, does a really great job playing the protagonist of this movie. I also found it interesting that the director was also the writer. I think the script really fit the way that this movie was filmed, so Joe Carnahan did a great job with that.
     
     Overall this movie is really good, but not great. I would give it a B in it's genre, but as a movie overall probably a C+. I'm kind of a tough critic, but if you like suspense you should check it out because they do an exceptional job at keeping you on the edge of your seat.

Billy Bathgate

     E.L. Doctorow's novel, "Billy Bathgate," is a story about a young man growing up in the Bronx during the Great Depression. Billy grows up without a father figure and has a desire to work for successful, big time, mobsters of the Great Depression. He is taken under the wing of Shultz, the leader of one of the most notorious gangs in Brooklyn. As Billy works his way up in the gang he finds himself questioning his actions and motives. Billy comes to a point where he has to make up his mind, is he in or out?

    I really enjoyed this book a lot. I would say that this is like a noir version of Tom Sawyer, it may be hard to understand but this is a darker tale with a similar plot. Both Tom and Billy are growing up in hard times, but Billy isn't in the "country" but the Bronx. He's not doing small time crime, but he's working for a top dog gang. He comes to see things no one could imagine to see at his age now. I felt like I really connected with the time period of the book, the 1930s, and it was interesting to see how people in the city lived through the Great Depression. This book is pretty graphic, but if you liked The Giver and the Godfather than this is a good read for you.