Consideration of Internet Posting

The Internet is a space that millions can have access to. This is why one must be careful about posting on blogs. I spend hours thinking about what I should say and then reread my blog ten or more times to make sure that I follow my own rules. But, others do not follow the rules that I have set for myself.

Just recently in the international community where I live, there was a blog posted by the wife of one of my teachers. This blog was about her elation leaving India. But, instead of talking about what she would miss about leaving, she focused on what she hated. This blog offended everyone in the community because she was at worst, racist, or at best, culturally insensitive. After talking about how she wanted to get back to her home country of America she said, “I know that even if our flight to Frankfurt is dominated by dark brown faces and a rainbow of saris, it will likely be more mixed or more Western from then on.” These lines suggest that she wants to get away from the “dark brown faces” to the white “Western” ones. She just lumped together about 75 percent of the world and stated that she did not like them. But she did not just stop there, after insulting more than half the world’s population she then grouped Americans together as “lumpy bodied and sloppily dressed” people. So, she is happier to go back to the “lumpy bodied” population than see more than half the world’s population? This caused upheaval in the community because of how offended people were over her words. Unfortunately, this family’s memory may no longer be as cherished as it would have been if the blog had not been posted.

I will not give this women’s name but would instead like to use her mistake of posting this blog as a way to explain to others why it is important to know that everyone can read what you put on the Internet. I do not think that she realized how culturally insensitive she was being. It is true that she is entitled to her own thoughts and ideas, but it is also true that the Internet is a place that is shared by anyone with access to it. I believe that the Internet is a place where all thoughts become public and so private thoughts and ideas should be posted thoughtfully.

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Missile Protection

With the Olympic Games coming up this summer, London is making it’s final preparations. The British Ministry of Defense is discussing placing surface-to-air missiles on a water tower in a very densely populated area of London. The missiles’ location is in the Bow Quarter private estate. The buildings used to be a match factory that was converted into flats and houses. "Ground-based air defense systems could be deployed as part of a multi-layered air security plan for the Olympics, including fast jets and helicopters, which will protect the skies over London during the Games," said one official. Leaflets were sent to the area warning the people of the possibility of the missiles. Site evaluations and exercises are currently taking place.

When the people of the neighborhood received leaflets explaining that there was a plan under consideration for placing missiles in the neighborhood the response was one of absolute shock. "This is a highly built-up area. I can't imagine any situation in which you could safely use a high-velocity missile over Tower Hamlets," one of the residents commented. He then went on to say that there should be concern for the security issue of the Olympics but, missiles were an over reaction. "This is meant to be reassuring, but it creates a lot of anxiety for me," he said.

When I first read the article about the placement of missiles in London I was shocked and thought, ‘What has the world come to? We now must place missiles to defend ourselves when the world comes together to compete in a friendly manor?’ Even though I fully understand that with the current circumstances around the world it is good to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, I still think that placing the missiles dampens the point of the Olympic Games. The Games are a time for all the nations to come together to compete without the rivalries that are happening back home. (I understand that there still is pressure between countries, but usually the athletes are able to put it behind them to compete in a fair game.) On the other hand I have to agree with the British Ministry of Defense, it is better to be safe then sorry. Since the nations will be coming together, attacking during the Olympic Games is a great way to make a statement and unfortunately not everyone in the world believes in the idea of putting differences aside for a month.

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Londoners Shocked by Olympics Missile Possibility
By: CNN Wire Staff

Bingo!

And let the game commence! 5… 14… 21… Would you please stop staring at me! 32… Would you please stop! Look I heard that this was the only place in the universe where my zeons of studying numbers 17… would fully pay off. And how do you humans repay my life’s training? 46… you sit and stare at me during the final tournament. Really? Are you just trying to get me to lose! If you are it is working, you are throwing me off my game. 50... And you are barely paying attention to what you are doing! It almost seems to me like you only play this game for fun! You do? Ugh, that is insulting! I have trained for six of your pitiful generations under Untureu himself and he has taught me all there will ever b – 23… ever be about the numbers of the universe. I know every single number system from the Milky Way Galaxy to the tip of the universe (which your scientist might want to know, is still expanding) and 42… so now I am ready to put my life’s work to use. What? You want me to leave! I am being too serious? How very rude of you! I am very serious about winning this game. It is the difference between life and death for me. Where I come from numbers have all the power 15… and so are not to be thrown around lightly, and if the numbers line up to win then my planet will survive! And you ask me to leave?!? Humans are the rudest race I have ever met! 49… Actually that is not entirely true, the people of Saturn were very rude and insisted that I looked like a large ant! Can you believe it? What is an ant by the way?... 34… Bingo!!! ... You are still staring at me…

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"The Hare and the Pineapple" - Why Standardized Testing Makes No Sense

This story appeared on one of New York’s standardized tests a few weeks ago and became the talk of the eighth grade. Kids kept complaining, “The story doesn’t make any sense.” And does it? Daniel Pinkwater, the man who wrote this story, or at least the outline of the story, (the standardized test makers changed the story from an eggplant to a pineapple, the rabbit was changed to a hare, and there was no mention of sleeves) said that he considered himself a nonsensical writer and the test makers had taken his story way too seriously. “It’s a nonsense story,” he said, “and there isn’t an option for a nonsense answer.”

People around the United States who are against standardized testing are using this story of the pineapple and the hare as an example of the absurdity of standardized testing. Deborah Meier points out that a “right” answer is one that is chosen by the testers when looking at how the “smart” kids answer; sometimes though, she says, even intelligent kids can be incorrect. So, Meier concludes that the pineapple passage was “an outrageous example of what’s true of most items on any test, it’s just blown up larger.”

A few days after the test was taken, and after a few thousand e-mails from students from around New York, the state education commissioner, John B. King Jr., said that “due to the ambiguous nature of the test questions the department has decided it will not be counted against students in their scores.”

I think that this passage is a ridiculous story to put on a standardized test. There is no point to the story (although I could make one up) and so there should have been an option that said “The Hare and the Pineapple” was a parody of Aesop’s Fable “The Tortoise and the Hare.” I think that this example really does show the absurdity of standardized testing. The test makers believe that students must have good analytical skills (which is good) but they go too far and try to analyze everything, even things that really have no need to be analyzed because they have no point (like the story of the “Hare and the Pineapple”). If the test makers want to fully understand how good a student’s analytical skills are, then they cannot create a multiple-choice test; they will need to hear what the children believe by having them write their thoughts and opinions. No one answer can be correct because there may be many layers of a story. For example if the test makers had asked, “What is the purpose of the story? What is the author trying to convey?” Then students could have answered that the story was a parody of “The Tortoise and the Hare” instead of worrying about who the smartest animal was and why the pineapple was eaten.

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"When Pineapple Races Hare, Students Lose, Critics of Standardized Tests Say" By: Amenona Hartcollis

Test Pages - Provided by New York Times

Article: The Flop and Revival of "Carrie"

“Carrie” was originally a book by Stephen King and then turned into a famous movie in 1976. Because the movie was such a hit it was turned into a Broadway production in 1988 and was a show to remember, but not in a good way. On Broadway there is a saying that goes “Not Since Carrie.” It was an eight million dollar flop that ran for five performances before closing. “Carrie” is a show about a teenage girl with telekinetic powers who is emotionally bullied at school and at home by her mother. The infamous scene was Carrie’s prom night, “Out for Blood,” where the mean kids slaughtered pigs offstage (the noise still haunts those who watched the show) and then their leader dumped the blood over Carrie, who in turn killed all her classmates with her powers. When Carrie returned home her mother stabbed her and as Carrie lay dying she killed her mother as well. This bloody production of “Carrie” still haunts Broadway today. But this past winter “Carrie” was redone off Broadway. While the performance ran for eight weeks, it still closed two weeks early. There have been mixed reviews about the performance, some say that the show, now revised, lost its hard and horrible touch. People say that getting rid of the dumping of blood on Carrie (and instead just doing projections) was a horrific idea. They claim that they would have been happier if the people in the first two rows had been given rain coats so that they could get blood splashed on them. Despite all the criticism, the writers are happy that the show did as well as it did. After the 1988 flop they were absolutely devastated, but this off-Broadway performance was not a full flop and so they see the show becoming better. Mr. Cohen claimed, “Having faced all the baggage and all the naysayers who said ‘Carrie’ would never happen again onstage, and on a stage in New York no less, we did what we wanted to do — fix the show.”

I was very surprised to hear that “Carrie” had done so well onstage. “Carrie” is such a hard play to do because there are emotions and situations that are hard to write good music for and it is hard to find good actors to portray those emotions. For example how does an actor sing a song about how she want to kill her own child? It is not exactly easy to do. I was also surprised to hear the news because it seems illogical to retry a show the fully failed in 1988. It seems to me that it was a big risk to bring this show out of the ashes. But I fully respect the director for trying to fix the production so that “Carrie” could be remembered as an ok show instead of the worst Broadway failure.

‘Carrie’ Revival, Now Dead, Has Autopsy - By: Patrick Healy

An Outsider Gets a Nicer Date For the Prom - By: Patrick Healy

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In the Mind of a Director

Ten minutes until house opens! Where did the pins go? I thought I put them here last night after the performance… Last night’s performance really brought down the cast, tonight is going to be hard. I will have to give a pep talk then. Ahh, there are the pins. Now where did I set down the skirt? Seven minutes until the house opens! I will have to remind the cast that every audience is different and some are really dead. It was not their fault that the audience thought that the show was not very funny… or if they even thought that. I mean they loved it; they just were not very expressive. Pin in, only through one layer. Remember that this repair only has to last one more night. House is open, fifteen minutes to curtain. Has our effort really only boiled down to three performances? It is so sad that our months of practice have come down to this. Ten minutes to curtain. At least we could share it. I remember the hardest time, tech week, or in our case, tech day. The day where we had to work for nine hours from line to line, and cue to cue so that the technical aspect of the production could be added. This day can be defined as the time where everyone has to learn how to run around with a positive attitude, with three hours of sleep from the night before and have a load of four hours of homework still to do. Five minutes to curtain. One-inch border around the whole hem of the skirt, remember, and pay attention to where that needle goes. The actors have done a wonderful job. Look at them running around backstage and having fun. We are the great big family of thespians just living for these times behind and onstage. I am very proud of all the work and effort they have put into this production. There the skirt is done. Two minutes before curtain. I’m on the speech tonight? Ok… let me think for a minute. Places!

Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen to tonight’s performance, we are so excited to have you tonight. Well, sort of, after last night’s audience we will only be happy to have you if you actually react to the acting by laughing. Please be a good audience. Out of courtesy of the actors please turn off your cellphones and please take no photographs. We have actors doing acrobatics and tricky movement onstage and even the red light is distracting. You would think that they already know these things, but there is always someone who is not following the rules, even when we state them directly. Also, this is a comedy so please laugh! *laughter* Ok, what did I say that was funny? ‘please laugh, it is a comedy’… ok it might be a bit funny. Wait for the curve in the laughter… Please enjoy the show!

Lights down. Music. Actors in place… cross fingers and … action.

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One of My Reason's to Live

Theater could be defined as one of my ties to life. It is one of the reasons that I am here. Why? Because I love to be in someone else’s shoes, I love to feel what others might. I also love the teamwork and friendships that are created in theater situations. We are there for each other reaching for a similar goal.

Every person has their own habits, their own hardships, their own flaws. I am no exception. I know that I have my limitations and sometimes I wish I was different and so I become someone else through theater. As an actor I get to experience what it is like to be someone else. I get to be someone else. I get to step outside my shell and see the world with new eyes. I could play a lover, a criminal, or just a commoner. It does not matter what part I am playing, I get to see a new perspective on life. This allows me to understand others in real life (even if, in theater, I just get handed a script).

I also love the teamwork involved in theater. Everyone is there for each other. We suffer through long hours of constant practice just waiting for the final result. It does not matter if you are the main role or the lighting technician everyone is working on an equal basis to achieve the perfect performance. This experience forges friendships that last a lifetime. I don’t think anyone can understand how strong friendships are when they are built in the theater. Everyone is working and everyone is stressed we get to see sides of each other that we did not know existed, we learn about who people really are. We are family.

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