Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Discuss the argument presented in the documentary based on the questions about "The End of Suburbia".

Q1. The main claim is that people live in suburbia need consuming a lot of fossil fuel in their automoblies. But right now, the global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now. This is a big warning to everyone who live in surburbia.

Q2. The background of the problem is that the world Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now. Because the United states had past it's oil peak in 1970's. Therefore, it's a hot issue for people live in the world to care about.

Q3. The reasons are due to the following relations. After the World War II, North americans hvae the American Dream want to live in suburbia-> People in suburbia need personal automobiles to go everywhere fo living -> A lot of automobiles need a lot of fossil fuel -> But the fossil fuel on the earth is limited -> Many experts says that the oil peak will pass in 2010 -> In order to prevent the American Dream broken, we need to do something in advance. Such as developing new technology in automobile or find the other kinds of energy for people to use.

Q4. The evidences are in the following examples. 1.The blockout happened in toronto, Canada
2.The data shows on the graphic about oil peak 3.The oil price is getting higher and higher 4.The living style in suburbia is hard to chang in a short time.

Q5. First, the biochemical fuel is already available on the market. You can choose to fill this kind of fuel in your car. Second, the experts still can not calculate the real quantity of the oil on the
earth. Third, the hybrid car already manufactured and sold by the motor company, such as Toyota and Ford. The car can use the hydrogen to generate power pushing the car forward.

Q6. The energy prices skyrocket in the coming years. And the living style will have a big change in north america. The energy's price will become higher than everyone can afford in daily life.

Q7.The scientists need to find out other replacement energy quickly. Beacuse the time is almost not enough for reserching when compare to the fossil fuel consuming speed. Such as solar energy, wind, and other nature resources.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Discuss whether you think mixed marriages are good or bad. If you were going to do research on mixed marriages, what factors would you investigate?

There is a true stroy about mixed marriage in my big family. My second aunt, old sister of my father, married to a Japanese around thrity years ago. In my childhood, I always remember everytime when she came bake to Taiwan to see my grandparent. She always brought the most popular toys in japan to us. My cousin and I are so glad that we had a mixed marriage in our big family. Because it is not so many opportunities to have a mixed marriage in that time in taiwan. In traditional society, older parent will help their daughter to decide whom will marry to. Therefore, it is not so easy to have a free choice to my aunt whom can choose who she loves independently. And I think another reason is due to my grantparent have a open-minded heart. They allowed their children to decide their most important decision in the lifetime, and to choose your love in the world.

In my personal view, having a mixed marriage is good. Beacuse you can have a chance to become very familiar to another country's customs, cultures, and open your minded in different way. The world is too big to understand. It is a good way to understand other country's culture through mixed marriages. The chance for me to have a mixed marriage is hard to calculate, if someday I just have a chance to meet someone that I really like and fall in love with her. In the end, I will choose to have a mixed marriage without a doubt.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

What do you think is the ideal age for a child to be introduced to computers?

In my opinion, I think the ideal age for children to be introduced to computers is when they starting learning in the kindergarten. Because in this age, the brain activity is very active and dynamic in these children. They can learn and try to understand everything quickly. They are very curious about the world, and I think you should give them an opportunity and a very powerful tool to use for them to try to realize everything they can. The young children can try to dig out everything they can realized and understand by using the special designed computers, and which is designed for learning purpose no matter outside the hardware or inside the software. The most importat reason is giving them a choice to decide to use the computer or not, because they can understand in this world there is a kind of tool called computer for them to use if they want to. Besides, they still have teachers at school and parents at home to support them, and give them the different solutions when they can't figure out the answer of the question they face when use the computer. For this reason, i think the ideal age for a child to introduced to computers is around six to eight years old.

Responses to the three questions on p.15

Q1. There might be as many health related concerns such as problems with your eyes, and getting addicted to the computer that you might stop thinking than the computer instead for your brain. Therefore, you would not be able to think broadly as you should.

Q2.These parents realized that they have done a big mistake by not sending their children outside in the real world where they can explore themselves and would get smarter naturally.

Q3.The main factor can determine how useful computers are in the classroom is whether have well-trained teachers. Because the well-trained teacher can use the tools for simulations and applications.

Summary of "beyond Rivalry"

During childhood, siblings are a major part of each other's lives, for better or for worse. As adults they may drift aparts as they become involved in their own careers, marriages and families. But in later life, which retirement from career, an empty home, and parents and sometiomes spouses gone, brothers and sisters often turn back to each other for a special affinity and link to the past. Psychologist of the University of Hartford Michael Kahn says "In the stressful, fast-pased world we live in, the siblings relationship becomes for many the only intimate connection that seems to last" And psychologist Deborah Gold of the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development points out,"Since people are living longer and are healthier longer, they will be more capable of giving help." But siblings may not turn to each other for help because of latent rivalry. They may believe that if they need to call on a brother or sister they are admitting that the other person is a success and I am a failure. Almost all of the people in God's study said they would rather than continue on their own than ask their brother or sister for help. But Gold found that a chrisis beyond control would inspire a rallying of some or all siblings around the brother or sister in need. Despite the quarreling and competition many people associate with the mere mention of their brothers and sisters, most of us will find unexpected strengths in this relationship in later life.

Summary of "State Lotteries are needed"

Throughout history, the state lottery is an attractive option to legislators because citizens are not compelled to contribute. Without a state lottery, legislators are compelled to impose higher taxes upon citizens to meet the financial needs. Lotteries thus provide essential funds for state programs through voluntary taxation. Take the George state for example, properly managed state-sanctioned lottery programs have helped states raise over thrity billion dollars in revenue nationally. In 1995, the state government provided 85 million in scholarships which allowed more than 100,000 high school graduates to receive post secondary education. Another public benefit derived from state lotteries is found in the jobs created by these lotteries and the programs they help fund. More than 8,000 jobs in George are directly attributable to the state lottery and its funded programs. States can also profit from lotteries because of the economic benefits of providing relief to state taxpayers. Take the Wisconsin state legislature for example, it has given its citizens close to two billion dollars in property tax relief since the state's lottery began in 1988. When effective adminstration of lottery revenue is achieved, the proceeds can accomplish a great deal of good.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Writing exercises. Alter the following sentences to make them academically respectable and defensible.

1. Physical attraction is important for marital happiness.
=>Physical attraction may not be so important for marital happiness.

2.Economic sanctions are ineffective.
=>Most of the economic sanctions may be ineffective.

3.Alcohol causes people to become violent.
=>Drinking a lot of alcohol beverages would causes people to become violent.

4.Passive smoking causes cancer.
=>Passive smoking could be the major reason causes cancer.

5.Recycling is the best solution to the waste disposal problem.
=>Recycling is might be the best solution to the waste disposal problem.

6.Physical exercise lessens the severity of depression.
=>Physical exercise lessens may reduce the severity of depression.

7.Great novels do not make great films.
=>Great novels do not always make great films.

8.Private schools provide better education than do public schools.
=>Most of private schools provide better education than do public schools.

What examples of hedging can you find?

Our analyses of cases of school violence since 1995 support the hypothesis that social rejection was involved in most cases of lethal school violence. Twelve of the cases involved an ongoing pattern of teasing, bullying, or ostracism, and at least six of the perpetrators had experienced a recent romantic rejection. In only two of the incidents did we find no clear evidence of rejection; Seth Trichey, who wounded four students in Ft. Gibson, OK, was an honor student that other students liked, his victims were randomly chosen, and he seemed unable to explain his actions. Even so, he did not appear remorseful (unlike, for example, the shooters in Fayetteville, TN, and Conyers, GA), which suggests either that he thought that the victims deserved their fate or that he was psychologically incapable of empathy. Victor Cordova, who killed a female student in Deming, NM, also had no history of rejection, but he had been deeply depressed for some time. These findings are consistent with those obtained by the U.S. Secret Service and reported in their Safe School Initiative. In their analysis of school shootings that have occurred in recent years, they found evidence for bullying, ostracism, and social rejection in over two-thirds of the cases [Vossekuil et al., 2000].
Several of the perpetrators explicitly explained their actions as a response to being mistreated by other students. For example, the perpetrator of the Pearl, Mississippi shooting said that he killed because ‘‘people like me are mistreated every day…. No one ever really cared about me’’ [Chua-eoan, 1997]. Similarly, one of the Jonesboro, Arkansas shooters had vowed to kill all of the girls who had broken up with him [Blake et al., 1998], and the Columbine killers’ rage appeared to come from their rejection and mistreatment by other people. Of course, a murderer’s stated reason for his behavior may reflect nothing more than a self-serving justification. However, independent evidence from other students and teachers corroborates the presence of rejection in most of the cases. It is also noteworthy that, to our knowledge, few of the perpetrators attributed their violent behavior to other equally plausible causes, such as disinterested parents, a broken home, child abuse, academic failure, or psychological problems.
Few individuals navigate their way through adolescence without being teased, bullied, or rejected in some manner, but the vast majority do not exact retribution on their classmates. Rejection may be frustrating, angering, even maddening [Buckley, unpublished data; Twenge et al., 2001], but it is rarely sufficient to provoke premeditated violence even if the victim feels like killing people. Thus, rejection alone, while a possible contributor, does not necessarily cause violence by itself. The information we collected regarding the three other risk factors offers hints regarding other contributors to school violence. In particular, most of the perpetrators displayed at least one of the other three risk factors (psychological problems, interest in guns or explosives, or fascination with death). Thus, we speculate that rejection, combined with one or more of these other factors puts an individual at higher risk to perpetrate aggression against peers.
First, a variety of psychological problems may be associated with an increased tendency for aggressive behavior. For example, certain personality disorders are characterized by aggressiveness, paranoia, low impulse control, lack of empathy for other people, and even sadistic behaviors, all of which may lower one’s threshold for violence [Millon, 1981]. Thus, some instances of school violence may reflect extreme manifestations of an ongoing pattern of antisocial and aggressive behavior. Many of the shooters had been in trouble previously for aggression against their peers, and two had allegedly abused animals. In addition, people who are depressed and perhaps suicidal may behave in desperate ways, feeling that they having nothing to lose by acting aggressively [Marano, 1998]. The Safe School Initiative report indicated that perpetrators in over three-fourths of the school shootings had either threatened or attempted suicide at some time in the recent past [Vossekuil et al., 2000].
Second, individuals who not only have access to guns but who are fascinated by firearms and explosives may be more likely to act on their aggressive impulses because they are comfortable dealing with instruments of destruction than those who are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with guns and explosives, who do not have the means to perpetrate violence with firearms and bombs. Experience with guns is by no means necessary, however; the perpetrator of the West Paducah, Kentucky shooting had apparently not fired a gun before his rampage.
Third, people who are fascinated by themes of death, and whose identity is linked to Gothic, Satanic, and other ‘‘dark’’ lifestyles may find the idea of carnage less revolting than most other people do. It remains unclear whether death-rock music and other aspects of popular culture that glorify death cause otherwise peaceful adolescents to be violent or whether individuals who are already inclined toward aggression are simply more interested in death-related music and activities.
Previous theory and research has not adequately addressed the question of why rejection sometimes leads to anger and an impulse to aggress. Thomas [1995] suggested that the painful feelings of shame that often result from rejection may provoke anger and aggression, much in the same way in which physical pain (such as slamming one’s own hand in a door) can make people angry. Other writers have suggested that aggression may result from a desire to show that one is not a person to be trifled with [Nisbett, 1993] or to maintain self-esteem and buttress one’s positive self-concept after an ego-threatening event [Baumeister et al., 1996]. Without discounting other explanations, we believe that the primary motive in most of the school shootings seems to have been retribution, either for an ongoing pattern of ostracism and teasing or for an acute rejection such as a romantic breakup. In fact, many of the cases were characterized by both an ongoing pattern of rejection and a specific rejection experience, suggesting that the recent rejection may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. At the same time, however, the evidence suggests that at least some of the perpetrators were seeking respect as well. After killing three and injuring five in West Paducah, KY, Michael Carneal was quoted as saying ‘‘People respect me now,’’ and the Columbine killers fantasized that they would be famous and that movie directors would fight over making a movie of their story [Gibbs and Roche, 1999].
Of course, like all case studies, this one is open to the criticism that the mode of data collection is necessarily selective and uncontrolled. In particular, the evidence that we obtained about the episodes from press reports may reflect reporters’ implicit theories about the link between rejection and aggression; we may have found evidence of such a relationship because writers in the mass media selectively reported evidence consistent with their implicit theories. We cannot discount this possibility but find it noteworthy than only a few of our sources drew an explicit connection between the rejection that the perpetrators had experienced and their subsequent violent behavior. In most cases, information regarding the perpetrator’s relationships with other students was mentioned only in the context of describing the kind of person he or she was. Only after the Columbine shootings in April of 1999 did many writers begin to explore the role than ostracism or rejection may have played.
Furthermore, like all case studies, ours necessarily lacks an appropriate control group. Although we can document that most of the perpetrators of these school shootings had been subjected to teasing, bullying, or other types of rejection, we do not know for certain whether they experienced an exceptionally high level of mistreatment compared to other children and adolescents. Given that roughly 75% of elementary and middle school students are occasionally bullied at school [Kass, 1999], the perpetrators of the school shootings were by no means unique. Even so, from reading descriptions of their peer relationships, our sense is that most of the shooters had experienced an unusually high amount of bullying or ostracism that was particularly relentless, humiliating, and cruel. Furthermore, when an individual has psychological difficulties, an affinity for guns and explosives, or a fascination with death and gore, such peer mistreatment may evoke a catastrophic reaction.

What do you think about the compulsive shopping?

Q1. Yes, in my personal experience normal shoppers and compulsive shoppers behave differently when they shop. Normal shoppers will consider how many budgets they have and what kind of products they need to buy before they go to shopping. And the compulsive shopper will not consider too much, they just enjoy the moment of the purchasing when they use credit card. But most of them don't have enough money to pay the credit card bill.

Q2. No, I don't know anyone who seems to be addicted to shopping. Because I think the groups of my friends are still young and don't have a lot of money for us to become the compulsive shoppers. We are still eager to making money on our jobs instead of to shopping.

Q3. In some countries, the culture encourage people to work hardly and to save the money they earned in the bank such as the Chinese people. In contrast, in some countries the culture encourage people to enjoy their life and shop a lot. You don't have to make a lot of money, but you can enjoy spending all your money on shoppings such as the Brazil people.

Q4. The advertisments affect the way people shop depends on what kind of product they sell and what kind of the buyer they want to attract. Take myself for example, I am really interested in 3C products. Therefore, I will always focus on the advertisment introducing about the electronic devices I'm interested. No doubt, the advertisement affect the way people shop in many kinds of reasons.

Q5. I will define a compulsive shopper who just like the alcoholic drinker or the compulsive gamblers. Without shopping or spending all the money he owns, he will never stop shopping. Until he declare bankruptcy or face the tragedy in his family, he just can understand what is he doing before.

Q6.If the author of this article can point out where is the recent study come from which authority on paragraph 3 may have made this essay stronger, cause people can find out the rate about compulsive shoppers in this society if someone want to do more research.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The clever behavior of some animal

Animals sometimes display very clever behavior. An example of this clever behavior is not only how a killer whale can identify who is its trainer and who ever try to harm it's whale family but also can comprehend the different kinds of whistle mean. In the movie "Free Willy" you can see the main character, the killer whale Willy, whom can interact with the chief actor Jesse. He can use the different whistle commanding the killer whale to jump over the water tank to touch the balls which are hang on the roof and to do some funny movements to entertain the audiences. But the most clever behavior you can see in this movie is that the killer whale can identify who ever try to capture itself and it's family and fight back when the bad guys fall into the water from the fishing boat. Just like human beings, when they face the dangerous situation the killer whale will do something try to protect it's young sister and young brother. Therefore, I think the killer whale is one kind of the clever animals.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

What's the difference between academic and non-academic?

We talked about what's the difference between academic and non-academic writing yesterday, and the list below are some major diversities we discussed about.

First, the academic writing has a specific purpose and fixed structer in itself, but the non-academic writing has not the limition. The academic writing usually plays an important role in a series of researchs or experimets. Because the result of the researchs or experiments represent some kind of evidences taht we have to understand or to follow then we can get the truth or good performance we want in some kind of jobs. And it's usually have to spend a lot of money and energy to do a reserch or an experiment, then will come up a academic results. On the other hand, the non-academic writing doesn't need it, everyone can do a non-academic writing anytime in anywhere.

Second, it's need a lot of citations in the academic writing, cause them represent the evidence of your writings or experiments. The citations can make your writing has more powerful influence and let more people to trust it or to follow it. Just like the policies of a government, they can make a country stronger and stronger if the government make good policies and excute them very well. It's usually the good policies need many scholars to endorse, then the policies will earn more people to comply with them.

Third, the academic writing usually use special terminology. It depends on what kind of research area's audiences will read it.

My first week in GWU

Hello! My fellow classmates. My name is wei-chih Liao and I come from Taichung, Taiwan.
It's the beginning of my graduade student life in Washington D.C. in the USA. My major is accountcy in the school of business. The most important reason why I come to America is that I want to earn my master degree and pursuit my CPA license here. It's really nice to see you all here.