Month: November 2017

It may not look much like an ant hill, but I’m willing to argue that this scene is a prime example of stigmergy. Each broker scurrying around the trading floor is in their own way a dutiful scavenger, each LED stock ticker a blinding chemical signal. Continue reading “Stigmergencies”

After my research abroad on the concept of social climate change over the summer in Dakar, Senegal, I find it difficult to not relate climate change back to almost all things I learn about.  Social climate change explains how the changing climate affects the way people interact with each other, themselves and their surroundings.  A war is referenced several times during both Dawn and Adulthood Rites as the reason their planet was destroyed.  This leads me to wonder the immensity that humans will go to, to ruin their environment and each other. Continue reading “Social Climate Change and the Xenogenisis Trilogy”

Sometimes the best thing that we can do for people who are suffering, is to help take them out of their pain. This act can allow these continuously tortured individuals to hopefully gain some sort of peace and solace. Continue reading “Rest In Peace”

I’m sure most of us are familiar with the term PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We’re used to hearing about PTSD it in the context of war and active combat, it’s also prevalent after experiencing natural disasters, car accidents, sexual assault, and other life-threatening events. However, in the novel Zone One by Colson Whitehead, a psychotherapist named Dr. Neil Herkimer presents a new diagnosis: PASD, or Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder.  While I was reading about the condition, I was wondering why it wasn’t just called PTSD. I assumed that an event such as the one the novel focuses on (the apocalypse) would fall under the same category. After googling and reading more about PTSD, I realized how wrong I was.

Both conditions entail symptoms such as changes in sleeping habits, weight gain or weight loss, nightmares, feeling jittery and paranoid, loss of energy, trouble concentrating or making decisions, and thoughts of death, dying, and suicide, as well as negative thinking in general. These are only some of the existing similarities.

Continue reading “PTSD vs. PASD”

Throughout the book Clays Arc there has been a reoccurring theme of a lack of consent. Consent is the permission from both parties for something to happen or an agreement to do something. The characters in Clays Arc, Blake, Keira, and Rane, have been taken away from their homes without their consent, and have been forced to live in hiding. While living in these homes they have come into contact with a deadly disease that has been spread onto them yet again without their consent.

Consent is black and white. Unfortunately the struggle of consent has been prominent for decades. One major topic relating to lack of consent is medical experimentation on slaves. Although slavery no longer exists, the repercussions are still relevant today. According to this Daily News New York article, protesters demanded a removal of  a Central Park statue of 19th century doctor who experimented on slave women. The doctor’s name was J Marion Sims.  The article writes, “Sims, a South Carolina native, is considered by some to be the ‘father of modern gynecology.’ He developed a surgery to treat a tear women sometimes suffer after childbirth and founded the first hospital designed specifically for women in 1855. But Sims honed his craft in the 19th century by carrying out a series of experimental operations on African-American slave women — without using anesthesia.” Although Sims may have thought he was helping these women, he did not take into consideration the unethical work he was committing. Consent is not something to take lightly. It occurs daily whether it be intentional or not. I believe it is important for students to be informed about the topic of consent to help diminish possible problems in the future.

If I am walking along Main Street and I notice a puppy, immediately, and frankly without much thought, I recognize the puppy as a being separate from the human species. I see it’s shaggy fur, wagging tail, long ears and pink tongue and am able to assess that, yes, this is a puppy.  For human beings, our vision is a key sensory technique that aids in our survival and continuation as a species. This skill allows us to differentiate ourselves from environmental world deciphering between the human and- generally termed- nonhuman. Once classification has been established our bodies then move on to calculate how to react to this nonhuman factor, “should I pet the puppy?”. But if we dig a bit deeper our train of thought might yield some interesting questions, like, “when it comes down to it how different am I from the puppy?”. Taken in more holistic terms, “what separates us from the nonhuman?”. And lastly, in reference to Octavia Butler, “if it is to be thoroughly considered, how are humans different from the Tlich, from the enclave on Clay’s Ark, from the Ina, from the Oankali?”

Continue reading “Oankali Puppies! :Over-exaggerating the Visual”

Sakshi has brought up an awesome point in her blog post. The whole concept of people saying “I don’t see color” is pointless. The only thing that is happening is people are avoiding the issue all together. We can all pretend that racism doesn’t exist but what good will that do? It won’t fix the issue at hand – it will just keep happening. Talking about an issue is what’s going to fix it.

I am a supplemental instructor for organic chemistry and recently I was learning the most effective ways of teaching or tutoring students. One of the worst things you can possibly do as a tutor is giving the students an answer to a practice question. It is important to talk through the question and help them reach the answer on their own. One of my favorite lines to use when someone asks me a question that I know they should be able to answer using basic knowledge of the material is “I don’t know, you tell me.” It might be annoying at first and students hate it but it makes them tell me their thought process. As we go through the thought process, we adjust it so that they could solve a similar problem in the future. So my point is avoiding talking about an issue or just saying its bad is like giving a student the answer without explaining it. They get absolutely nothing from it.

Communication is very important when it comes to analyzing and fixing a problem. Earlier this semester we read in Medical Apartheid about doctors who only communicated with like-minded people and prevented African American doctors to work in hospitals. “Until three or four decades ago, these researchers were speaking only to their like-minded peers – other whites, usually male and rarely of the lower classes.” (Washington, 10)  They also prevented communication with the world and only other doctors were able to understand the recordings. “The medical jargon in which such research papers are couched is often impenetrable even to well-educated nonmedical people.” (Washington, 12) This causes a sense of skepticism within the African American community. Doctors were no longer trusted which hurt African American health in general. There was also no one who was able to be a voice of reason for these doctors. Doctors are very intelligent but even they make poor decisions as Avery talked about in her post.

I believe communication could fix majority of the problems. The key is to be open minded and listen to the perspective of others. Every person has developed their standing on an issue based on facts and experiences they have encountered in their lives. Hearing out ideas of others could lead to middle ground solution to a problem at hand. Also talking over issues with children would build a solid foundation for dealing with major issues in their future.