Annotated Bibliography

"Native Americans of North America," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2007
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

“Native Americans of North America”, created by Microsoft Corporation, discusses various topics that relate to the life of
Native Americans today and in the past. Today, many Native American tribes have either disappeared or stayed in
existence by forming themselves into a more modern civilization. By doing this, they have learned to adapt to modern
society without losing their true identity. Unfortunately, at the start of the twenty first century, many of these Native
Americans encountered many problems in economics, education, and health. The rates of school dropouts, suicide,
poverty, and alcoholism had all risen to its highest point at this time. However, these statistics are all becoming part of
history because of the Native Americans' successful advancement in our society today.

Macbeth Sound Effects

Heyy everyone, here's the sound effect video we had to make for our english project...ENJOY! :)

Guilt!

Guilt. Almost everyone experiences it. I can’t imagine there being a person who has not done something that they regret, making them feel guilt. Even sometimes the smallest things cause us to feel guilty. Has anyone ever seen the show, Moment of Truth, on channel five? Well, I have seen a few episodes, and it is a perfect example of people feeling guilt. Here’s what the show is about. Basically, a person is on a lie detector and they are asked pretty revealing questions about personal things, and each time they tell the truth, they get money. How guilty do you think these contestants are feeling on that show? Their personal secrets and lives are being broadcasted on one of the most popular channels in the country. There is absolutely a monstrous amount of guilt felt on that show when the contestants tell the difficult truth.
As for me, I have absolutely felt guilty before. I am not going to write a long story about how I made a mistake that caused me to feel guilty because I would probably go into too much detail and go on and on, so I’ll just keep it very broad. All that I will specifically say is that what I did was when I was younger, and I made a mistake. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but at the time, it caused me to feel guilty. Guilt can be a difficult thing to handle because it makes you feel uncomfortable since you realize that what you previously did was wrong. If you are going to feel guilty about something, it is usually directly after whatever you did. As soon as you realize that what you did was wrong, guilt takes over, just like it did for me. Making a mistake is a major cause of guilt. Have you ever done anything, big or small, and felt guilty about it later on? I can almost guarantee that you probably have because everyone does at some time.
As for our play, Lady Macbeth is a victim of guilt. In the beginning of the play she was just being power hungry and convinced her husband to kill anyone in his way of gaining the throne. Eventually, after Macbeth killed more people, Lady Macbeth realized that she was wrong. Over time, this guilt built up and ultimately led to her death (possible suicide). Now, look at Macbeth. He was a perfectly good man who made some terrible decisions causing him to change into a completely different person. It may take a while, but when Macbeth looks back at what he did, he will probably be overwhelmed with guilt. If you did something wrong in your past and have not fixed the mistake, it will eventually catch back up to you. If Macbeth doesn’t realize that what he did was wrong, who knows…someone may try to get revenge and kill him.



Okay, I officially give up trying to incorporate links into my post. It doesn't work on my laptop now :(
So...here they are:

how to deal with guilt and the difference between guilt and shame: http://www.trans4mind.com/personal_development/1stSelfDevelopment/I%20feel%20so%20guilty.htm

heres a link to try out the "moment of truth" online: http://www.fox.com/momentoftruth/game/

Feminism

For the most part, in the United States, feminism has been accepted, but in other places around the world, it is still progressing. Women can now have almost any job that a man can have if they really want it. But, until recently this was not the case. Although, women are now granted many more rights than they were in the past, some aspects have not yet changed. For instance, men receive a larger salary than women do in the workplace, which is unfair. Today, a woman makes seventy-five cents to a man’s dollar. If a woman can do the same job as a man and as well, why should they be paid any less? It doesn’t make sense. Even though some people may not see this being of great importance, progress has also been made in athletics. Not so long ago, men only played sports, but look where we are today. The Olympics now include both male and female athletes, unlike in the past. Just a little less than 100 years ago, women could not even vote, but look how far we have come. Not only can we vote now, but we can run for presidential office. If that is not saying something, then I don’t know what is. Gradually, if feel that women will continue to make more progress in obtaining completely equal rights. Just as with anything, there are positive and negative examples of female role models. For example, look at Anna Nicole Smith. She was a successful model and actress, but she cut her life short. After abusing large amounts of prescription drugs, she died of an overdose. Anna Nicole Smith had everything in life, but by taking medicine that was prescribed to other people she knew, at the young age of 40, one drastic mistake led to her death. This is someone who young girls should obviously not look up to. Although we don’t know if her death was intentional or not, we do know that abusing any medicine is deadly. In any case, her mistake was fatal and that should not be looked up to. Plenty of people make mistakes, but many are irreversible, like Anna Nicole Smith’s.




Now, we have to talk about Macbeth and the question is: Is Lady Macbeth a woman displaying positive characteristics for women?

For me, this is a difficult question to answer because she has some positive and negative qualities. But, if I had to choose, I think I would say that she is displaying more negative characteristics than positive ones. I feel that Lady Macbeth goes a little beyond trying to show feminism. She is a little too overpowering, which is one of her more negative qualities. Although she does prove herself to be a strong woman, Lady Macbeth chooses negative ways to show it. For example, instead of allowing her husband to gain power in a more “civil” way, she put pressure on him to kill Duncan. She has a more violent way of looking at things, from my perspective. I think she only displays positive characteristics to a point, and then she goes over the top trying to prove her strength. Lady Macbeth shows an extreme amount of power. Women should understand that they need power, but not an excessive amount of it.

here we go again...my links won't work, so here they are:

an article on anna nicole smith:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17050167/

an article on feminism:
http://2facts.com/ICOF/temp/28388tempib501230.asp?DBType=ICOF

Socratic Seminar

Today we had another Socratic Seminar, and it was definitely one of the better ones. Some questions that were asked include (but there are many others):

Is Paris Hilton empowering to young girls, or does she do them harm?
Who are role models for women and girls today?
Focusing on Lady Macbeth, does she help or harm the idea of feminism today?

Most people made many interesting points that were good discussion topics. For instance when asked if Paris Hilton is harmful to young girls, someone said that she is expressing negative power. A good quote that someone said was “any publicity is good publicity”. I completely agreed with this statement. Paris Hilton does not really care what type of publicity she receives, as long as she gets it. It does not matter to her if the publicity is negative or positive. The discussion on Paris Hilton became interesting because it brought out many different opinions. Someone mentioned that Terry Irwin is a good role model for girls, and now thinking back on the seminar, I can absolutely see what they mean. Terry has lost her husband in a completely unexpected way, she has two children to look after, and is still working hard and running a household. This goes to show how strong she is. She has learned to overcome a tragic event in her life. Overall, this seminar was probably one of the best we have had because it was on such a controversial topic.

Good People, Terrible Crimes

I cannot not mention any specific person because illegal immigration effects millions, which makes the topic very broad, but they are an example of good people committing bad crimes. Illegal immigrants are a rising concern in the United States as our population continuously increases. For an estimate of the number of immigrants in the USA now click this link. They are trying to start a better life for themselves. Many of them are perfectly respectable people who made an extremely risky choice. By immigrating into the United States, they have committed a great crime. Anyone could make the assumption that their reason for committing this crime was to start a new life for themselves and their families. They were probably perfectly good law-abiding citizens of their country, but by making this one difficult life-changing decision, they have put themselves in danger of being accused of committing a terrible crime. Hope is what created such a change in these people; they have hope that by illegally coming into the United States, a better life is waiting for them. And yes, they do have a good reason for committing this crime, but it is, at the same time, wrong. The people who live in these countries are struggling to get through life, barely making a living, so they feel that sneaking into the US is their best bet. We probably can’t even imagine what type of conditions they are living in, but that is not an excuse to commit a crime. To read more about illegal immigrants click here.

As for Macbeth…He seems to be easily persuaded because of intimidation. His wife, Lady Macbeth, is a powerful character in the play. Meanwhile, during that time, women were not considered the stronger sex; men looked down upon them. But now Lady Macbeth has proven herself to possibly be even stronger than her husband. I do not believe at all that Macbeth is a bad person, but his wife intimidated him, causing him to make this poor decision. This is why his morals changed. People are often pressured into doing things that they would normally not do. This shows how Macbeth was influenced by his wife to kill King Duncan. In the end he will probably regret his actions because he was just being power-hungry due to the witches “foreseeing of the future”. But was this a good enough reason for killing someone? Just from reading, you can probably tell my position on that question; he did not have a justifiable reason. What do you think?

Since one of my links is not easily visible, you can copy and paste this into your address bar: http://www.immigrationcounters.com/ (it is an updated count of illegal immigrants and other statistics)