Alec's Blog

Last Post

2010-12-02T14:55:00.001-08:00

As you can see from the title this will be my last post. I gave blogging an attempt and it didn't take off. When I first started blogging I had envisioned it as being an outlet for relaxation. Unfortunately I found that I don't have to much to blog about. Does that mean I'm boring? Maybe.
With that said I leave you with one final article.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B149G20101202

It's an organism that incorporates arsenic into it's DNA!!!!!!!

Ask you local chemist about it. . .

Welcome to "The Habitable Zone"

2010-10-05T15:34:00.001-07:00

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=habitable-exoplanet-gliese-581

This is cool. What does it mean? Nothing that most astronomers didn't already expect. What this reminded me of was The Drake Equation. I first learned about the Drake Equation when I was doing my English 101 biography on Carl Sagan. It goes like this:

where,

N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
and

R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.[3]

According to the late Carl Sagan:

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

Is science beginning to prove at least a facet of the equation? Only time will tell.

The Green Hope Movement pt1

2010-09-22T15:59:00.001-07:00

While I was walking towards the Student Senate office Dr. Jon Bowman stopped me. We talked briefly about the article that he had given me on the Green Hope Movement in Iran. He also told me that he saw my blog. I laughed since I had not posted on this blog since early August. This brief conversation made me realize that I should probably start publishing post a little more. So what do I write about? There is no way that I'm putting anything on here that happens in my personal life and my earlier declaration of not writing anything politically oriented presented many constraints.

So instead of ONLY talking about Student Senate, Student Activities, or the community I'm just going to talk about whatever. Right now I want to talk about the Green Hope Movement in Iran. . .
In June 2009 Iran had its presidential elections, following the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad there were waves of protest throught the country due to the disputed election results. Thousands took to the streets fo Tehran and disputed the election results, it was apparent that Ahmadinejad was not the democratic victor. Instead it is suggested that the Ayatollah manipulated the results causing reformist candidate Mir- Hossein Musavi to lose in all but two provinces. The protest would be followed throught the world due to access to modern technology such as cell phones, digital cameras, the internet, and applications such as Twitter. As the protesters took to the streets the Revolutionary Guard reacted with a barrage of violence.

Many protesters were injured, dozens tortured, executed, and killed while protesting. One such instance is the death of Neda Agha-Soltan. Below is a documentary of the events that lead to her death and the aftermath.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F48SinuEHIk

After the footage of her death was posted on YouTube international outrage ensued. People around the world learned of the protest in Iran because videos and blogs could be uploaded instantly. Followers no longer had to wait for days to hear from reporters via newspaper or listen to a radio broadcast. The methods of publicizing the demonstrators and the violence from the government marked a new era in non-violent protest. The protest gave hope to millions, including myself, it meant that if a population that is oppressed by an authoritarian theocracy then perhaps it is a hint towards a Kantian truth that history is tending toward a universal peace. Maybe the age of tyrants and dictators are coming to an end? Perhaps not. Thirty years ago their was a much different rhetoric coming out of Iran.

Many over the age of 50 are familiar with the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew Shah Pahlavi and the United States Embassy hostage crises of 1979-80. Unfortunately people of my generation and even my parents are unfamiliar with the event. The Green Hope Movement is reminiscent to the 79 Revolution. There are of course major differences, such as the death toll, outcome, politics. The 79 Revolution was extremely violent and had many factions competing for power. The faction that was ultimately victorious was the Radical Islamist led my Ayatollah Khemeini. The Marxist, Liberal Democrats, and other factions were unable to solidify resistance due to internal conflicts. This caused the mullahs to gain control of Iran and turn it into a theocracy. I will not go into to great a detail about the history of Iran because textbooks have been written on the subject.

The Prospect of a non-violent movement in Iran. . .

Foreign Affairs/Politics

2010-08-05T16:21:00.001-07:00

For most of the summer I've been either working, doing homework, or reading. Aside from reading Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, I've spent an untold amount of time reading Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs magazines. They have become the staple of my daily reading, but unfortunately they are both bi-monthly. Luckily both of their websites offer unlimited access to subscribers. After reading The Clash of Civilizations I became a little obsessed with situation in the middle east. There is certainly a lot to learn concerning global politics and reading a few books, taking two classes, and subscribing to two magazines is only scratching the surface.

www.foreignpolicy.com
www.foreignaffairs.com

Prospects

2010-07-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

I started working at the information desk in the Administration Building over a month ago. With this new employment I have to admit that I am even more entrenched at SCC then I ever thought I would have been. I've been a student here since 2008 and this is my last year. It's taken a little longer to get my A.A. degree since I took a detour during the 2008 election to work on a campaign, and I wouldn't change a thing about it. Three years does seem like a long time to go to a community college and my original perception about this school has been fundamentally altered since first attending. I've gone from a high school drop out to a (nearly) straight A student. SCC has helped me build my resume greater than I had ever imagined. I've certainly gotten attached to this school and the people who attend and work here, yet it will all be over by this time next year, and that means planning on transferring.
By far one of the most daunting task that has been presented to me is transferring to a university. I don't even want to think about the number of hours I have spent researching schools. The national ratings, the political atmosphere, majors, type of school, geographical location!! It makes my head spin. Going out of state is something I would like to achieve, but money is always an issue. The two greatest barriers will be paying for school and of course getting in. I won't start applying until early winter and probably won't know where I am going until at least March. Sometimes when people ask why I am planning so early or why I just don't go to UMSL. Well: UMSL is a good school but I want to go out of state and this is a potentially life altering decision. It's not like deciding what kind of coffee you want a Starbucks.

2010-06-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

Colorado

2010-06-02T10:18:00.001-07:00

My Grandpa, Uncle Brad, and Great Uncle Roger in Colorado.

We all took a roadtrip to Denver. Orignally my Grandpa and I were just supposed to go to University of Denver. Eventually we ended up in Mount Rushmore.

There are a few things that you never forget. This is one of them.

The picture on the top is at the Garden of the Gods. On the bottom is, well a mountain in Estees Park.

Colorado

2010-06-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

SAGE Exit Note

2010-05-12T09:49:00.001-07:00

Members and Supporters,
Since Fall of 2008 I have served as the president of SAGE. That is certainly a long time for any two year college club officer, I wouldn't trade those two years for anything in the world. If I could go back and do it all over again I would. There are many things I would do differently and improve, but that's the consequences of being young and human. Working with our advisers and fellow students has been a privilege that I did not foresee myself doing three years ago. Never was I active in the LGBT community until I took on the role as SCC SAGE president. Since then my life has changed dramatically. I've met some of the most driven and passionate people that exist on this Earth. They are the ones who make life worth living and make our struggle for equality worthwhile. SCC SAGE is with out a doubt one of the most controversial groups at St.Charles Community College. We are labelled as the "gay group", and in the past we have been met with discrimination. Since my involvement with SCC SAGE I have never been called anything derogatory (except for one instance) nor has anybody approached me or my peers and said or done anything offensive, at least nothing reported. We have come a long way, but the fear has not yet subsided, and if we continue our struggle towards equality we will one day become victorious. The only way this victory can be achieved is through cooperation with other LGBT organizations, our straight allies, and individuals within our own community. Fighting among ourselves will solve nothing, and in the past two years I have seen a lack of cooperation among some people and organizations. This will lead to nothing but tragedy and defeat. We are an invisible minority and nobody will hand us our rights. Apathy must be eliminated and unity must ensue or else we will never have achieve equality.
Thanks,
Alec K

Student Senate

2010-05-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

As of the 15th of April I will be the Student Senate president for the 2010-11 school year. Honestly I don't know what that will mean. There are so many possibilities that it is hard to narrow them down on some sort of line item list. There is always fund raising, but what's the point of fund raising when you don't have anything to apply the funds to? Although the possibilities are finite they are not slim or narrow.

One of the first things that ought to be done is to get enrollment process reverted back to the way it was. After walking out of my math class I was surprised to see a line stretching down all the way past the bathrooms in the Administration Building. Feedback from students seems to agree. We'll see how it goes.

First of all what is Student Senate? In one of the surveys that was submitted it ask, "does Student Senate have ANY power." That I don't know either. It will be something that will be discovered over the next few months. As of right now my goal is to transform Senate into what it ought to be: A representative body that advocates on behalf of SCC Students. We are not a PR organization nor should we be a public service club (meaning we don't always go out and plant trees. Not that it isn't something we won't do, just something we shouldn't do all of the time). Don't take that literally it was just an example.

This next year will certainly be an interesting and needless to say busy.
I look forward to the difficulty and it will serve as an interesting experiment.

-Alec

Expert Thoughts

2010-03-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems to be an expert on something. It's hard to believe that everyone is an expert on something. I think people like to think that they are good at least one thing. I wonder if they realize that they appear to other people that they think they are experts in that particular field? I guess you could ask but that would be akward. I wonder if I appear to be an expert in a particular field? I'm sure I seem pompus to a lot of people. Or maybe I just think that I seem pompus because I think I am pompus? Are you really reading this blog? Maybe you're an expert blog reader. Or an expert blogger?
Of course when I say,'expert on something' I mean that they appear to percieve themselves or others have the perception that they probably think they experts in a field of knowledge or skill set that they have had no expert trainning in. Maybe Albert Einstein was an expert in discovering new physics but maybe he thought that he was an expert at something else. Like gardening. As we speak there is some guy on the news who thinks he is an expert in health care legislation. He's a representative from some state in the United States. He doesn't sound like an expert. I wonder if he thinks he's an expert. hmmm. Maybe people should think twice before they offer their "expert opinions" in matters they are not formerly trained in. Especially when their implications have serious repercussion on the lives of millions. I bet Einstein didn't argue with a horticulturalist about gardening.

Way to much stuff to do. . .

2010-03-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

Don't have time to blog or rant but here is an interesting article on human nature.

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2007_03_19_New%20Republic.pdf

Achilles Heel

2010-01-21T08:38:00.000-08:00

Math. My Achilles heel. I've taken and dropped begging algebra twice already. Its seems as if this is my final chance to take this class. I haven't failed any of the latter times I dropped but its seems rather odd that I can take on so much and progress in a manner that seems tremendous to some and inconsequential to others. I cannot say that I have taken any classes except Arabic that have really pushed me to the boundaries of exertion. I think that any future math classes I take will do just that.
If there is a phobia (which I am sure there is) for math, I am almost positive I possess that malicious feature that is a singular attribute which leads to either success or failure. The next classes that have anything to do with mathematics will certainly be a test for the ethos of self overcoming.

Comment

2010-01-09T19:54:00.000-08:00

Nobody really reads this much. But I would like to thank the idiot who posted Japanese porn as a comment. Thanks! I hope you break something.

The Road

2009-12-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

I just got done watching the movie The Road. It was okay I guess. I can't say that it was film that will win any awards or end up on AFI's top 100 list, except maybe for apocalypse fiction.

Really the purpose for this blog is to think about the age old question of whether or not humanity is inherently good or bad. If you have ever taken a philosophy 101 class or if you paid attention during the first couple of weeks of American Government you have heard about John Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The former believed that humanity was inherently bad and the latter believed that humanity was inherently good. After watching The Road this question rattled in my head the entire drive home. The movies isn't the initial spark of this inquiry but it is also because I've been reading book on just war theory, which was published in 2006 and offers a contemporary voice to the ailing topic of just war theory. I won't go into the tiresome details about the book.

The Road is about a man and his son who are attempting to survive in a post apocalyptic United States. Cannibalism is a common theme throughout the film and so is escape through suicide. There isn't a strong plot and its not action packed like someone might anticipate an apocalyptic film to be. It certainly wasn't 2012 and it was much better then it too. For the majority of the film the father and his son are traveling to the what appears to be the western coastline for whatever reason. Yes, it is vague but the film is intended to be so. From the beginning to the end the boy and his father are fleeing from cannibals, which are common due to the nuclear radiation killing off all of the wildlife and agriculture. Certainly a depressing film to say the least. It was not gore filled and didn't show generals on the red rotary phone telling the missile silos to launch. It was simply about humanity at its lowest and how we might be in an abstract situation. To say the least the author who wrote the book that movie is based off of thinks we are screwed. I wish I didn't agree.

When reminiscing about the nature of the human race it is necessary to reflect on all of the good things that humanity has done and all of the bad things that we have done. Unfortunately history textbooks are generally filled with the bad stuff. Really that is all you hear about aside from the occasional soup kitchen in the city and the volunteers in Africa. Humanity is plagued with horrors inflicted on itself. From the first record of recorded history until as recent as the daily terrorist attacks in the Middle East on markets and mosque, there is a horrible act committed in every decade of every century that no sane person can justify. It tarnishes the soul to think about things like the Killing Fields in Cambodia, the Holocaust, the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, the genocide in Darfur. It looks as though humanity is more vicious than the most rabid animal. Many wonder if there is hope for the human race. A great deal of evidence points in dissent and the idealist and hopefuls nod their heads wearily in affirmation. In Kants Universal History he said that evidence is pointing towards peace and solidarity among humanity, but I don't see it. I wonder if it is hiding under the ashes of North Koreans?

All of this is very grim and slightly disturbing. But its hard not to be grim. It is much easier to be grim than it is to be hopeful. There are to many pages devoted to death and not enough devoted progress. That is what we need: progress. Without it humanity is no better off than the Killing Fields. It is what humans as a species are trying to do. It is why helping your fellow man is called humanism and not something else. Although there are marks all over the record of humanity it doesn't mean that trends do not change. Maybe that's how we have made it this far? There is no telling for sure. All that can be said is that humanity still has a chance and although we maybe inherently bad there is always room for change.

Al Jazeera

2009-12-07T09:06:00.000-08:00

I don't really have time to conjure up a topic to blog about but I thought I would give you this website: www.english.aljazeera.net
Its a middle eastern news source and provides a unique perspective.
I would trust Al Jazeera over CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News any day. They give you a story and leave out the ridiculous looking graphics and the pundits.

I was first turned onto it when I took Arabic.

The Gym

2009-11-29T20:02:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving was an uneventful one. I went to work at IHOP and went home to visit with family and later on saw a Fantatic Mr. Fox, which was fantastic. After the traditional family gathering I went to the gym to blow of the frustrations of the day. It was somewhat empty but more people were present then you would expect on a Thanksgiving day. Now, the point of this post is not to tell you about my Thanksgiving or my gym trip, but about a slightly interesting observation.
As most of us know with Thanksgiving comes both turkey and the football games. The most interesting part about going to the gym is watching all the guys in the gym gather around the corner television and stare into the screen. Most of them probably don't really care, like me. I don't think I could care less about football but still I found myself stopping and looking up every so often while a game is in progress. The most interesting thing is still not the people gathered at the corner of the gym walking toward the television like an insect flies into a bug zapper. It's what they watch while they are doing cardio. It doesn't take much but an unintentional glance to see what they are watching but sometimes it is shocking and hilarious. One of the biggest guys gathered around the television who looked so enthralled by the football game was watching a special on Opera. He had to be around 6'3 and 300 pounds and he was watching this Opera special with an interest the surpassed fascination.

It's really not that funny but I thought it was an interesting piece of social psychology.

Spheres of knowledge

2009-11-17T09:27:00.000-08:00

Last week when I was studying for my astronomy test my mind began to wonder. I was thinking about how interesting astronomy is and how it is science that truly pushes the boundaries of discovery. I do not mean science in the technological sense but the true sciences like physics and chemistry. The ones that transcend our spheres of knowledge from one plain to another.
After thinking about this grandiose fact I came back to reality and realized that I am a social sciences major.
Initially I got a little disturbed since I know that I will most likely never explore these sciences that expand our understanding of the universe. For most normal people their spheres of knowledge will never go beyond a few subjects. Most likely a psychologist will never know about quantum physics and a surgeon will never know about Heideggers Being and Time. When I was doing my English 101 biography on Carl Sagan I will never forget when he was asked what socialism was in an interview with Ted Turner. He had not the slightest clue what it was. Carl Sagan was one of most intelligent individuals to walk the planet and he didn't know what socialism is. I guess nobody can know everything but that doesn't mean we should ever abandon any quest for knowledge. . . as tacky as it sounds it is true.

Posting Blogs

2009-11-09T12:40:00.000-08:00

Never would I think that I would blog. I never cared for it. Mainly because it seemed narcissistic and I have actually never read a blog regularly that was about the person writing it for personal use. The same reason I hated blogging was the same reason why I hated Facebook(which I now have and use and that makes me a hypocrite). They are essentially cybertrash, if that actually exist. If it doesnt then I suppose I just coined a new term, yay for originality. When knocking Facebook, Twitter, and blogging I am not trying to say that they shouldn't exist. I am just saying that its absurd (and amusing) that so many people talk about themselves through these technologies and essentially it contributes to growing mindlessness of our society. To all the people whos butt(I don't think I can say a*s) does not leave the computer seat please read a book or draw a picture.

For the most part I thought blogging was annoying and allowed people to talk about things that nobody cared about, especially themselves. Twitter scares the hell out of me for the specific reason that it gives an outlet to people who cannot get enough of themselves. "Tom is taking a crap." Good going Tom I hope it is big one. Maybe you can name it.

There is something that classifies different types of blogs. There seems to be purposeful blogs and irrelevant blogs, that was the topic of the paragraphs listed above. I highly doubt that SCC signed anybody up that was boring and or hedonistic. So, something tells me that SCC blogs will not be irrelevant and that is what I will try and do: post about relevant topics. Im not going to make any promises but I'll try not to be boring nor will I update you consistently about aspects of my life that are inconsequential (e.g. my boyfriend and I saw Paranormal Activity and it SUCKED). Nor will I rant about politics or religion.

Check out theonion.com its the best place for news. I discovered it this morning while getting ready for class.

The Onion

2009-11-09T12:34:00.000-08:00