Reflection

Aaron Rucinski

11/17/08

Humanities

Rough Draft of Writing

Beaches in San Diego are overall very good compared to other places in the country. We have many places that attract tourism and have lower pollution levels allowing fewer cases of infections and other bacteria causing ailments. Mission Beach, which is a very popular beach in San Diego, is number 3 on the beach grading system I made based off of water pollution, tourism and overall beach cleanliness.

Water pollution is a big issue in coastal cities. It causes illnesses starting from nose and ear infections to upper respiratory problems. All though most of the time these things are minor they are a hassle and take away from the overall experience of going to a San Diego beach. Mission Beach has very good pollution levels all year round. Even after it rained it still had exceptional ratings compared to other beaches in the country and San Diego. A website called Heal the Bay gave Mission Bay an A the whole year. As well as data from Heal the Bay, tests that we have done in class has shown that Mission Bay has miniscule amount of water pollutants such as Total Coliforms, E Coli and Enterococci which are two main bacteria. Although water pollution is a big part of the beach grading scale, it is not the only thing.

We then look at tourism, which basically rates money generated by shops and the overall attraction this beach has compared to others. Mission Bay has an area called Belmont Park that has an arcade, food, a rollercoaster and a few other carnival rides and this attracts a lot of tourists and kids who want to have a fun day of beach fun and rides. As well as having the all those things, there are huge amount of stores varying from beach clothes to formal clothing allowing people to shop after having fun on the rollercoaster. Even though it has all these fun activities to do, there are a lot of places you can rent out so you can go to sleep with a beautiful view of the ocean and wake up to the sound of the waves.

Lastly, we have beach cleanliness. Beach cleanliness is the amount of litter and trash that is left on the beach, which affects the overall beauty that the beach has to offer. There are signs all over the place and police officers that drive along the beach that stop people from having glass, alcoholic beverages and stop littering as much as possible because it is against the law and is a nuisance to other beach goers. These rules and the people that enforce them allow Mission Beach to stay clean letting tourists and locals to have fun in the sun without having to worry on stepping on anything.

This beach is filled with many activities and a great place for tourists and locals to visit. It has so many different things to do; you will be entertained from the time you get there to the minute you leave. Overall, it is the cleanliness; lack of water pollution and tourist attractions that give me the pleasure of making it number 3 on my top beaches in San Diego list.

Paragraphs

This is one of my essays, this essay is a draft of my work which is something i feel i did really well on. I tryed so ahrd to amke sure my writting was the best ic ould make it and that included making a lot of drafts since personally i find my writting less and adequate, if i used other people as my way of genreating ideas to make my writtng better i will come out with a better end product.

I did this by making sure i had everything ready to be critiqued by my teachers and peers so that things will be 100 percent in my eyes before they are graded harshly by my peers showing spelling corrections that had to mbe made clarity in sentences and overal layout of my paragraphs. This is somehting i feel i have never done before to this extent since i would say that i got up to 12 different drafts and i dont even know if thats the least of them. This is the process i went through to get to my final product.




This picture is just one of hte four pictures i ahd for my indesign layout. This captures the beach while showing what people do there in action. It allows tourists to see how much fun they could have.

I went through this by first looking through picutres in the hardrive that would help me relay my point and show the beauty of the beach. In the end i asked my mom who is a great photographer to see if i could use her work and i got 2 pictures from her little album she made that were of 2 of my friends last year at a surf competition. They were happy that i thought the pictures would be good enough to go on my final draft.

Paul Watson, a Man on the Brink of Insanity.

Paul Watson has a very different way of seeing things that the average person. He uses force when most people would use politics and argument to make sure that what he believes in happens. Paul Watson believes that whale hunting is a brutal crime that should not go unpunished and feels that since it is not looked at as such a big issue he has to take matters into his own hands. The best way to do that for him is coming up with a navy that will protect whales everywhere from the whalers who kill them for food. This “fleet” he controls is called the infamous “Neptune’s Navy.”

Paul Watson is a man who uses very little to do something very big. He has two boats the Hunter and the Farley which are extremely old and the Farley is pretty much floating wreckage. Watson has zealous volunteers who help him protect these waters with items such as stink bombs, water cannons and his favorite weapon, his bow. ( bow is the front of the ship) This quote shows what the bow was used for, “Ramming is his signature tactic, and it is what he and his crew intended to do to the Japanese fleet, if they could find it.” He calls this method of ramming called “Operation Asshole.” This method has scared whalers and it down right should, it is like a modern Trireme which for all those who don’t know was an ancient Greek ship where the bow had a giant ram to sink the other ship. Even though scaring the whalers is a main part of his tactics it is not the only one.

The media, this is how Watson gets the support for his voyages from people like Sean Penn, William Shatner and Orlando Bloom. Watson takes videos of all his journeys and puts them on youtube as well as writing books and articles of his journeys and beliefs. These things have gotten him lots of support from private companies (that generally don’t have anything to do with whaling) and private investors. Just from donations he gets around 2 million dollars annually to upkeep his ships and get supplies. While he gets support from private companies, he has not gone over so well with many countries, “Officials in Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Costa Rica have denounced him.” Even though these countries have denounced him he has never been convicted of any act of violence or piracy.

These tactics have given him split comments from a lot of different people. People have said things like what Peter Singer said, “I think he’s a hero” while Sidney Holt one of the principal architects of the whaling moratorium said, “I think his involvement in all this is an absolute disaster. Almost everything he has been doing has had a blowback for those who want to see an end to whaling.” Even though he might not be liked by everyone he is strongly believes in what he is fighting for and since he has been given a show on the discovery channel, people must think it is interesting which is just another way he uses the media to persuade the general audience towards his side of the whaling argument.

Overall Paul Watson believes very strongly that what he is doing is right. To tell you the truth, I don’t think there is one person that can talk him out of what he is doing because he thinks he is doing such a good job he said this comment, “I will not watch a whale die. I’ve not seen a whale die since I left Greenpeace, in 1977. When we show up whales don’t die.” Watson will be fighting against whaling till the day he days and even when that day comes his legacy will be there and people will take his place to make sure “Neptune’s Navy” is used as the protector of whales and the informant to the public of the world.

Racial Identity

Racial Identity

Language of racial identity is something that happens all the time in the U.S. actually it happens all over the world. Racial identity is done by everyone whether they know it or not, each race has a stereotype which is then looked at when you see that persons skin color, or distinctive physical features. These things change how we see ourselves, how the community sees you and how the world categorizes you.

How we feel about our self is a very big part of how we act. If we feel like we are constantly being judged we may be a little more cautious for certain things. This goes the same for race. People of a certain race even if they are biracial are generally classified based off of there skin color, like a example Marie used was Obama, he is white and black yet most people just know he is black and is considered the first “black” president because of his skin color. Because of how the media and other portray these people black people who may be white or Asian themselves will think of them selves as only black and forget the other racial parts they have. This form of characterization has been happening since people have been alive; this is the reason for slaves and reason for genocide. When believing a certain race may be better like how Arians felt during the Nazi regime, Jews had to pay for their stupidity. Even though we have been moving forward in minority equality the future may have drawbacks because of characterization of biracial people and not accepting what is beneath eye level.

The way we feel about ourselves is closely correlated with how the community sees you and how the media portrays it. Another thing from the “He’s Not Black” article talks about how the media is saying that he is a black man and how he’s the first black man to become president when he is also white. Now I feel that this characterizing will cause things in the future that we don’t see in the present now a days, I feel like there will be more stereotypes based off of race even more than there is now and overall the tensions between races will causes a shift in political power within the government. I also think that with the characterization of skin color and race we will never be able to reach the full potential of equality that a society wishes to make but realistically there is no way that a society as big as the United States could ever be completely equal for everyone, there will always be those that have more power than others and that is how capitalism functions.

Lastly, how the world sees us, which is generally as controlling, overweight and lazy also changes out outlook on things. Our whole government is basically based off of power and being the best at everything it does. Our pop icons such as some that Marie had listed shape how others feel about us which then shapes how we should act. A few examples are how a lot of girls look up to Britney Spears even if she isn’t biracial, people look up to her and even if she is considered a bad example she is the one who portrays America when she goes around the world singing. So even though race is a large part of this discussion we can’t also forget how the new and media shapes our ideas and how we act based off of stereotypes that are set and we feel we have to follow. This is something that Marie does not put into her article yet I feel is something that if addressed and adequately presented would help prove her argument as to how we characterize people off of race.

Overall the discussion on racial identity could be discussed for countless hours and there are so many viewpoints on how it might change our government, our way of life it would be near impossible to write down. But after reading this article I do agree with most of it but I feel that she left out certain topics that she should have addressed to better further the understanding of racial identity we have I this country and how individual people are not to blame but the people in the media who feed this information that may be half true just to sell there magazines, newspapers or to get ratings.