Author: nyctime7

Summaries – nyctime7

Does Using Paper Take CO2 out of the Environment?http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/04/paper-carbon-dioxide-sequester

It seems counterintuitive to produce paper to combat global warming, as an alternative to trees. It is believed that one of the main causes of global warming, is the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is one of the components of photosynthesis, used by trees when producing oxygen. You’d think an easy fix would be to stop planting trees right? Well since we as humans require oxygen, simply ceasing the growth of trees isn’t a wise option. What about paper? Once a certain amount of oxygen per tree is produced, cut down said trees by making more paper! Unfortunately, paper is just as bad, if not worse for the environment than an actual tree.

Cutting down a tree doesn’t eliminate carbon dioxide, thus creating paper isn’t foolproof. Paper actually holds on to carbon similar to the same way a tree does, with the exception of oxygen. This means as long as paper isn’t burning or begins decomposing, it’s effectively storing carbon. What people don’t often know, is that paper doesn’t store carbon for long periods of time. On average, paper can store carbon for 2-3 years before it starts degrading. More often than not, this occurs in landfills when paper isn’t recycled. Unfortunately this results in methane, a gas more potent than carbon. A tree which usually lasts for decades, is a better carbon sink than paper which has a much faster expiration date.

 

Men Defining Rape: A History

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/men-defining-rape-history

It seems counterintuitive that a man can define the specifics of rape for a woman. For thousands of years, men have created the laws and decided whether or not a man was raped. These laws were created on the bias that a man was greater than a woman. In many cases, the woman was seen as the “bad guy” instead of the victim. How would the man feel if the show was on the other foot?

The idea that a man is better than a woman has existed for many years. Some of the first laws are prime examples of this. In 1780 BC, it was actually considered property damage for a man to rape a virgin woman. Since when was a woman property? A man is receiving reimbursement for “property damage”, while the woman gets nothing, besides the prize of being seen as an object. As time progressed, woman were no longer seen as mere objects, but were still misunderstood. For centuries, it was believed that a woman could not conceive without giving non-verbal consent. The notion that a woman has the ability to shut down her body to prevent being raped is insane to me, yet it was another belief shared among the same men that created rape laws. It’s obvious that some men throughout history had both a bias and disconnect from women, so they shouldn’t have controlled their lives.

 

Free Heroin to Battle Addiction

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-02-04/vancouver-combats-heroin-giving-its-addicts-best-smack-world

It seems counterintuitive to provide an addict with the very substance they’re addicted to. When a person has an addiction, it’s customary to get them as far away from said substance as possible. To do the exact opposite is quite puzzling at first, but makes sense with all things considered.

Studies show that some people are beyond the help of traditional addiction aid. These people exist everywhere, and little can be done to stop them from becoming problems for society. An alternative to letting addiction spiral out of control, has taken place in Vancouver. As a sort of “damage control”, heroin is prescribed to addicts, but only in severe cases. Addicts who would otherwise be disturbing the peace, or further harming themselves, become members of a safe zone, Insite. They are provided with free heroin, as well as clean place and instruments to use. Though the root of the problem isn’t being fixed, the effects are effectively being neutralized, leaving the streets of Vancouver safer.

 

 

Moving Image – nyctime7

0:00-0:03 The ad begins with a young man and woman, walking away from a building at night. There is a neon sign “bar” on the building, meaning they were at a bar. Both of them are dressed nicely, signifying lower-medium class.  They are both stumbling slightly, the woman more so than the man. She’s holding on to him as they walk, perhaps signifying that they’re a couple, or she needs his support to stay upright. They’re both smiling as if they enjoyed themselves. There is a car parked in the middle of the street. The car looks about average, nothing special, yet not a clunker. Its lights aren’t on, which means it’s most likely off. They two walk slowly around the back of the car and towards the driver’s door.

0:04-0:05 The two stop walking as the camera zooms in on their faces. The man is positioned in front of the rear driver’s side door, which means he is probably the driver of the vehicle. They turn towards each other, still smiling and laughing.

0:06-0:07 The woman grabs onto the man’s jacket, as if they’re getting ready to kiss each other goodnight. A car is seen slowly driving by in the background, along with people leaving and entering the bar.

0:08 The two suddenly look at the camera. The woman is taken out of view, and the camera closes in on the man’s face. His facial expression changes from happiness to a more serious one, as shown by his mouth starting to close.

0:09 The man’s sunglasses suddenly disappear from his face. He fully closes his mouth and looks towards the woman, showing a puzzled expression. While this is happening, cars and people are quickly blurring in and out of view. Most likely showing that time is quickly elapsing.

0:10-0:11 Both the man and woman are shown once again. She suddenly lets go of him, with a similar confused look. The man looks down and away from the woman, towards his right arm. She also looks towards his arm, with a more puzzled look.

0:12 The camera orients to the man’s wrist, showing a presumably expensive watch. Like his sunglasses, the watch disappears suddenly. He quickly bends his wrist towards him, as if to show he’s both shocked and confused.

0:13 As the view positions back to the man’s face, he looks into the camera with an opened mouth. With widened eyes, he seems to be breathing heavily. His expression has evolved from one of confusion, to that of fear.

0:14-0:18 The man and woman are shown in front of the car, looking downward.  The camera zooms in on the button of a jacket. The stitching of the button unravels, and the button begins to fall. The button falls to the concrete, besides the man. The view of his dress pants and shoes, quickly changes to him wearing cheap sandals and ripped jeans.

0:19-0:21 The man’s dress jacket has changed to a worn white tank top. He looks at the woman with raised eyebrows, with a look of shame or embarrassment. The space between them has grown, showing she may not be as interested in him as before. She looks back with lowered eyebrows with a look of disgust. A zoomed in look, shows more of that same disgust and confusion on the woman’s face, through frantic eyebrow movements. She looks around and takes a hesitant step back, suddenly disappearing herself.

0:22-0:25 Left alone and without his nice clothing, the man looks all around, still confused. The car he was standing in front of disappears, along with the crowds of people and car traffic. He looks at the camera with a look of defeat. The lights in the bar all turn off, as the party is most likely over. One last time, a zoomed in shot of the man shows his confusion and shock.

0:26-0:31 The word “Buzzed” appears in blue, “Busted” in red, and “Broke” in blue. Each word flashed the same way police car lights flash in red and blue. The text “Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving” comes on screen for the remainder of the video.

Stone Money-nyctime7

The idea that money has any value, is a myth.  Money is simply the physical representation of a person’s wealth. No matter the object used as currency, it will always be a placeholder for something imaginary. It’s important to remember that there’s a difference between value and worth. As Americans, we use dollar bills as our form of money. The literal dollar bill is nothing but a piece of paper, yet we measure our worth using it. The idea that we are either rich or poor based on how many pieces of paper we have, is quite odd on the surface, but it works. Our idea of money is similar to that of the people of Yap, as well as Brazil. Money is given power by people, and can only exist when a person believes it has value.

The exchange of goods from person to person has existed from the beginning of time. The only thing that has changed, is the object various people use as currency. On the island of Yap, large stones are used as money. A person in possession of a stone, would hand over their stone, in exchange for other goods. In many cases, these stones were too large to actually be exchanged, and transactions were essentially made on “good faith”. An example of this is a family who lost their stone before ever receiving it. The people of Yap acted as if the stone was never lost, and treated the family accordingly. This practice was accepted as a logical means of trade for the people of Yap, regardless of physical possession of stone. To the modern person, the people of Yap, probably seem like fools. I myself even questioned their logic, until I compared their stones to our bills. Our methods of trading are very similar to those of the Yap. We trade pieces of paper for other goods, given that another person believes our paper is worth the exchange. With the use of banks and credit cards, we don’t necessarily see the money we give or receive, but we accept it as gospel. Our monetary system may be more modernized, but at its core, is just as “crazy” as trading stones for actual goods.

In the 1990’s, Brazil faced one of their worst economic problems, inflation. The president at the time printed an excess of money, which resulted in the downfall of the cruzeiro. In the blink of an eye, the price of an item would change. Stores changed prices daily, sometimes hourly, leading people to believe nothing could be done to control inflation. This trend continued, until four men introduced a fake currency. Unlike the cruzeiro, this fake currency, URV’s, would stay stable. The only thing that changed was how many cruzeiros a single URV was worth. When people noticed the stability of URV’s, Brazil’s economy also stabilized. Like the people of Yap, Brazilians had to believe in their currency for it to flourish. The price in URV’s gave people the idea that priced had stopped steadily rising, when really they rose and fell like any other currency.

Prior to my research, I thought my $1 was actually worth $1. In reality, that $1 could be worth more or less than the value printed on the bill. I never realized how we operate on a system of good faith, especially in our modern lives. If my bank failed tomorrow, I have no physical item to prove that I’m worth something. We’re simply trading pieces of paper, given value by the government, as representations of worth. Don’t get me wrong, this system is needed in order to make transactions, but if we as a society stopped believing in the dollar, are we really worth anything?

Works Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” The Island of Stone Money(1991): 3-7. Web. 10 Sept. 2016.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/15/131934618/the-island-of-stone-money

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/423/the-invention-of-money