A person will never have an honest view of themselves, and no one in the media will ever have an honest view of anything done by anyone. The girl was in the desk, she moved her arm in a manner that the officer could have considered threatening, he pushed her to the ground. Those are the facts of the incident itself. However, these are not the only facts that need to be considered: if they are, a city court would be much more likely to decide the cop was innocent than a rural court due to the former likely considering teenagers more threatening. So, instead of judging anything about the incident itself or what any articles have to say about it, this post is an examination of the other people in the room, whose firsthand reactions to the incident can be used to determine whether the officer was justified in feeling threatened by the student's actions.
The first individual to examine was the student seated to the right of and behind the girl in the white, orange, and grey shirt (Note: he is much more visible in the "raw" footage lower in the article). As the person physically closest to the girl at the time of the officer's actions, he remains seated calmly in his desk and does not even appear to flinch. This implies that violence is not a particularly uncommon occurrence in the school the officer was called to, which would mean that a reasonable person would feel at risk of injury when a student made a gesture perceivable as threatening.
The second person whose reaction is important in the case isn't shown in the video, but (judging from the sound of the individual's voice she sounds female) at the 6~7 second mark in the video, she is heard saying "Ooh" in a tone that sounds quite typical of a teenager witnessing a fight, and not a tone that would imply distress. This lack of worry over the officer's actions can be interpreted to show that a policeman being in the school isn't that uncommon either.
Going through every other individual at the scene is the job of a lawyer, and I'm not getting paid to be a lawyer, so I'll simply finish by pointing out two specific traits of the rest of class as a whole that imply a lack of distress: multiple students recorded the incident in a manner that was obvious to the officer, which shows they weren't worried about him being angered by the recording; and the class as a whole was fairly quiet without most members looking away from the officer, hinting that this form of interaction is not a one-time incident.
Overall, the reactions of the students in the class show that there really wasn't anything that unusual about this incident. No one seems worried that the officer will hurt anyone else; they simply seem to be waiting for it to be done so they can tell their friends next period. In Franklin Area High School, a policeman using this type of force against a student would likely never be considered justified, but this event didn't occur in FHS. News companies were quite rapid in formulating their opinions on the incident, but they must remember that while all people are created equal, all schools are not.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Thursday, October 22, 2015
An analysis of Bohemian Rhapsody That is Absolutely Not a Poorly Disguised Attempt to Use Vocab Words
"Is this the real life, is this just fantasy,..." Did I get it stuck in anyone's head yet? If so my mission in life is complete. I want to finish off what's left of the vocab list analyze this song with a very deep meaning for fun, so I decided to make a blog post. The song is quite famous BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME due to its fantastic instrumentals, amazing applications of harmony, and impressive usage of action changes to keep the attention of the listener. So, what exactly is the point of the song so tenacious that it is arguably the best-known song among teenagers from before our time? Is there one? This writer Googled and read the Wikipedia on found out exactly what the song is about through a long period of difficult research, and found that conveniently, Freddie Mercury and friends have all completely refused to explain what the song means, so I can make up whatever I want if I can provide evidence for it.
One of Queen's goals in Bohemian Rhapsody was to make a piece that was as large and epic as it could be. This much, at least, was allowed to be known by the band members. Even if the band had wanted to keep this information private, the immense amount of money and effort they put into the piece makes it quite obvious. The members of the band used methods considered practically ludicrous at the time to make the piece, resulting it in being a more complicated piece than almost any other pop culture song to date.
Considering the massive amount of energy put into it, it seems extremely unlikely that Queen just wrote the song for fun. There are many theories; my personal favorite is one where a perfidious gangster wrongs the main character in some way, which results in the main character killing him, saying goodbye to his mother before running away from the rest of the gang, getting caught by them before he can escape, and killing them all before returning to say goodbye to his mother again. Though I couldn't find that exact story online, I found this similar story which takes the lyrics even more literally.
So, was there really a point to Queen's masterpiece? It seems we'll only know if the band itself lets the information slip, and I personally highly doubt that will happen anytime soon, but people will argue about it until the end of time anyway because this is the internet. In any case, it's still objectively one of the best songs ever made, and you'll still get strange looks if you don't like it.
One of Queen's goals in Bohemian Rhapsody was to make a piece that was as large and epic as it could be. This much, at least, was allowed to be known by the band members. Even if the band had wanted to keep this information private, the immense amount of money and effort they put into the piece makes it quite obvious. The members of the band used methods considered practically ludicrous at the time to make the piece, resulting it in being a more complicated piece than almost any other pop culture song to date.
Considering the massive amount of energy put into it, it seems extremely unlikely that Queen just wrote the song for fun. There are many theories; my personal favorite is one where a perfidious gangster wrongs the main character in some way, which results in the main character killing him, saying goodbye to his mother before running away from the rest of the gang, getting caught by them before he can escape, and killing them all before returning to say goodbye to his mother again. Though I couldn't find that exact story online, I found this similar story which takes the lyrics even more literally.
So, was there really a point to Queen's masterpiece? It seems we'll only know if the band itself lets the information slip, and I personally highly doubt that will happen anytime soon, but people will argue about it until the end of time anyway because this is the internet. In any case, it's still objectively one of the best songs ever made, and you'll still get strange looks if you don't like it.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
The hardest book I ever read
Discounting Twilight, I can honestly say that I feel most of the books I've read have had at least some value. It should be noted that I include entertainment as value. I know what most of you are thinking, but no I'm not going to say Silas Marner, because in my opinion that wasn't hard; it was just awful. I am not going to say the dictionary, which I read in elementary school when I had even fewer friends, because the pages consisted only of a cacophony of definitions and lacked symbolism, motifs, themes, and every other part of literature.
So, now that I've gone through things that aren't the hardest book I've ever read and spent a large amount of time forcing a vocabulary word to fit somewhere in the paragraph, I'd have to say the hardest book I have ever read was Egg Monsters from Mars, part of the Goosebumps series. It tells the story of a kid interacting with egg monsters from Mars. This, obviously, was not the hard part of the book.
The easiness with which I read the book, which I was in either second or third grade while reading, abated gradually as it went on. In the book's climax, (if a post is created on a blog no one will ever read, is a spoiler alert still needed? Either way SPOILER ALERT) a scientist attempts to contain the egg monsters from Mars and the child who interacted with them. The reaction of the egg monsters to this action was to form a blanket when the child got cold, sacrificing themselves in the process. Also the narrator laid an egg. For reasons based around all science that has ever been done, this confused me to no end. The librarian had a dearth of time to read it, let alone explain it to me, so I went without any sort of explanation until I remembered the book in middle school, when I finally Googled it while avoiding actual work. It makes sense now of course, but I have not been confused by a book that badly ever since. Yes, I'm counting Heart of Darkness when I say this; however, it was close.
So, now that I've gone through things that aren't the hardest book I've ever read and spent a large amount of time forcing a vocabulary word to fit somewhere in the paragraph, I'd have to say the hardest book I have ever read was Egg Monsters from Mars, part of the Goosebumps series. It tells the story of a kid interacting with egg monsters from Mars. This, obviously, was not the hard part of the book.
The easiness with which I read the book, which I was in either second or third grade while reading, abated gradually as it went on. In the book's climax, (if a post is created on a blog no one will ever read, is a spoiler alert still needed? Either way SPOILER ALERT) a scientist attempts to contain the egg monsters from Mars and the child who interacted with them. The reaction of the egg monsters to this action was to form a blanket when the child got cold, sacrificing themselves in the process. Also the narrator laid an egg. For reasons based around all science that has ever been done, this confused me to no end. The librarian had a dearth of time to read it, let alone explain it to me, so I went without any sort of explanation until I remembered the book in middle school, when I finally Googled it while avoiding actual work. It makes sense now of course, but I have not been confused by a book that badly ever since. Yes, I'm counting Heart of Darkness when I say this; however, it was close.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Based on the circumference of the Sun, the sacrifice of what living creature can be traded to Satan in order to create a test to kill students' brain cells?.... Now pick the quote from the reading that backs up your answer. Seriously, how long can I make these titles?
Though I am quite circumspect to break the oath I signed and discuss the test - but not really because that was just a perfect way to use a vocab word - most of the questions on the test can be summarized with one word: stupid. But wait, are they really THAT terrible? Everyone who immediately said "Well, yeah" can shut up, something's only bad or terrible if it fails at accomplishing its goal. With that in mind, are the PSAT's actually that bad?
The goal of the PSAT is literally in the name: it's a Practice for the SAT. Annoying and completely awful to actually do as it may be, it at least kind of makes students think about the SAT's, even if it itself really means absolutely nothing in and of itself. Oh it's also meant to bring its completely altruistic company tons of money, which it unequivocally does quite effectively.
For reasons unknown by top scholars, the layout was reading, writing, math, math v 2.0 (Now with even more SUFFERING). For reasons also unknown, math v 2.0 was approximately 150% more difficult than three times the difficulty of the combination of the reading and writing sections combined together. However, my mechanical pencil broke in the middle of this test and I hated the non-mechanical pencil I had with me so much that I spent about 1/2-34n^3+7 minutes attempting to fix it.
So, to put it simply, the PSAT's were like every other standardized test, just with a timer. Also, about 1/4 of 73% of the test was developed by Satan, and the remainder was developed by his best friend Todd.
The goal of the PSAT is literally in the name: it's a Practice for the SAT. Annoying and completely awful to actually do as it may be, it at least kind of makes students think about the SAT's, even if it itself really means absolutely nothing in and of itself. Oh it's also meant to bring its completely altruistic company tons of money, which it unequivocally does quite effectively.
For reasons unknown by top scholars, the layout was reading, writing, math, math v 2.0 (Now with even more SUFFERING). For reasons also unknown, math v 2.0 was approximately 150% more difficult than three times the difficulty of the combination of the reading and writing sections combined together. However, my mechanical pencil broke in the middle of this test and I hated the non-mechanical pencil I had with me so much that I spent about 1/2-34n^3+7 minutes attempting to fix it.
So, to put it simply, the PSAT's were like every other standardized test, just with a timer. Also, about 1/4 of 73% of the test was developed by Satan, and the remainder was developed by his best friend Todd.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
SQUIRREL!!!!!!!
I saw a few people doing posts on their writing process and said to myself, "Hmm. Can I make this funny?" The answer is no, but it probably won't be too soporific. That said, here's a summary of my writing style.
Conveniently, my mom needed something right after I finished that sentence at around 9:30. It took about five minutes, but then I didn't feel like doing anything. It's now almost 11:00. This is pretty close to my normal strategy of assignments.
It's now 9:30 of the second night of my attempt to write this blog post. I have Pandora open and am switching between five different 80's radio stations. I was working on the second reading list, but felt like a break and decided to finish this post instead. Once I get home, I'll get a cup of milk and continue the reading list and keep listening to Pandora.
That is my typical process in writing essays: starting one, getting called to do a chore, then not touching it for another few hours. Occasionally, I forget how time works and can do most of a paper while making myself death with music if my parents aren't home. Oh and then there's anything other than a major assignment, which is either done immediately after the class it's assigned in or a minute before the class it's due after someone asks me how well I think I did.
The reason I suddenly chose to update this post is an enigma, even to me. I definitely did not do it just to force vocab in. Though, technically speaking, that is indeed a part of my writing process in many cases.
Conveniently, my mom needed something right after I finished that sentence at around 9:30. It took about five minutes, but then I didn't feel like doing anything. It's now almost 11:00. This is pretty close to my normal strategy of assignments.
It's now 9:30 of the second night of my attempt to write this blog post. I have Pandora open and am switching between five different 80's radio stations. I was working on the second reading list, but felt like a break and decided to finish this post instead. Once I get home, I'll get a cup of milk and continue the reading list and keep listening to Pandora.
That is my typical process in writing essays: starting one, getting called to do a chore, then not touching it for another few hours. Occasionally, I forget how time works and can do most of a paper while making myself death with music if my parents aren't home. Oh and then there's anything other than a major assignment, which is either done immediately after the class it's assigned in or a minute before the class it's due after someone asks me how well I think I did.
The reason I suddenly chose to update this post is an enigma, even to me. I definitely did not do it just to force vocab in. Though, technically speaking, that is indeed a part of my writing process in many cases.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Huck Twain is as static as a wooly rug...I think. Twain likes confusing people. How long can these titles be anyway?
Huck Finn goes through no changes morally whatsover. He- did every single thing Mark Twain ever wrote have to be so controversial? It seems like his favorite activity in life was making people argue then just grabbing a bowl of popcorn. Next time that comet comes around we're all going to hear a crap ton of laughing. Anyway, Huck's a lazy bum from beginning to end.
Huck Finn, throughout the novel, goes through no moral changes. There are, admittedly, times when he considers whether what he is doing is right, but he proceeds in every one of these instances to just go on doing whatever it was anyway. The most important example of this is when he is considering turning Jim in, and by this point in the novel he had already been on the raft for a fairly long period of time.
Some people feel that Huck took more control of his life, but in reality he only took control when no one else was controlling him. This makes him a situational leader, but this status doesn't really develop throughout the book: at the beginning, he chooses to escape his father and at the end he makes the decision to help Jim escape the Sawyers. This is the only trait that it seemed like Huck might have changed in to me, and he obviously didn't change in it to me.
Some people feel that Huck took more control of his life, but in reality he only took control when no one else was controlling him. This makes him a situational leader, but this status doesn't really develop throughout the book: at the beginning, he chooses to escape his father and at the end he makes the decision to help Jim escape the Sawyers. This is the only trait that it seemed like Huck might have changed in to me, and he obviously didn't change in it to me.
Vocabulary.com is a thing that exists
Vocabulary.com is probably the best vocab site I've seen so far, but that really isn't saying very much. Using competition as a way to encourage people to actually study is a great idea, but I feel that it will also eventually result in people making fun of the person who did best that week. Also, this is the number one person on the site this month. And last month. And quite likely the month before. Competition stops being fun or interesting after a certain point and I am still trying to figure out how it is humanly possible to master that many words and have literally anything else to do ever.
As with basically everything that has ever existed in this universe, vocabulary.com has its pros and cons. It seems like a relatively useful learning tool, but it is definitely worth noting that while most of the definitions are well-written, a few of them would make more sense if they were written by a gerbil. Nothing about the site other than the competition factor is interesting. It feels like I'm just forcing myself to answer enough to get to the top. Then again, the only way to make vocabulary interesting is to give definitions in Samuel L. Jackson style.
As with basically everything that has ever existed in this universe, vocabulary.com has its pros and cons. It seems like a relatively useful learning tool, but it is definitely worth noting that while most of the definitions are well-written, a few of them would make more sense if they were written by a gerbil. Nothing about the site other than the competition factor is interesting. It feels like I'm just forcing myself to answer enough to get to the top. Then again, the only way to make vocabulary interesting is to give definitions in Samuel L. Jackson style.
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