Melanie’s Weblog

To a certain extent, I can understand censorship. Parents want to protect their innocent children from the cruelties of the world. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, along with swearing and blasphemy, are not elements of life that young people need to be exposed to.

This being said, it is not possible to shelter children forever. Eventually they are going to step into the real world, where people swear and deny religion, and all other manner of censorship-worthy acts.

I can understand wanting recording artists to make two different versions of a CD, a clean one and a vulgar one. It is right to give people the option of whether or not they want to hear cursing and bad lyrics. As long as it is not forced upon people, and the artists don’t lose any of their creative rights, I cannot see anything wrong with this. I would never buy the “clean” version, but that is a choice people should have.

There is one censored item that concerns me more than anything else: books. There have been countless examples throughout the past century of school districts trying to ban certain books from being read. In the case of Ray Bradbury’s “Farenheit 451,” the book was censored because it had words such as “damn” and “hell” in it. Any middle schooler who has not heard these words lives a sheltered life indeed.

In Eighth Grade, I read “The Giver.” This is yet another book that angry parents have tried to get banned, because it shows unfavorable treatment of children in an indifferent fashion. As an 8th grader, this never even crossed my mind. I loved the book, mostly because it portrayed a society that was so clearly far from reality that it fascinated me.

This censorship is never a good idea. For one thing, America is supposedly all about freedom of speech. What kind of example are we setting for younger generations if we tell them that they can say whatever they want, but be careful because if people don’t approve, you will get in trouble? For another thing, banning and censoring books just makes people more likely to want to read them.

Just because a book is banned, does not mean it is going to just disappear. The only way to effectively ensure that no one reads books is to physically destroy them. How is this done? By burning them. Isn’t that what the Nazis did? Censoring books brings us very close to the level of Nazi Germany, which is an unfavorable parallel indeed.

Any book that has negative content should not be censored. The educational content of the book is what counts, and so what if there are a few swear words here and there? So what if the book was written by an alleged Communist? This is the year 2008. You can’t hide anymore.

For this week’s assignment, I looked at the New York Times science section online.  The article I read was titled “Now: The Rest Of The Genome,” and it was written by Carl Zimmer.

The article was about how the definition of DNA as we know it might not be entirely accurate, and how this might affect the future of the Human Genome Project.  For years, students have been taught in high school biology class that a gene is, according to the article, “a single chunk of DNA encoding on a single protein.”  DNA makes genes, and genes are passed on from parent to child.  This was generally accepted as the truth.  However, scientists are beginning to question the validity of this definition, saying that perhaps it is not the DNA that plays the most important role in genetics.

The coverage of this subject does not seem sensationalized.  The writer presents straight facts, none of which seem aimed at grabbing the reader’s attention.  While the contents of the article are controversial and innovative, they are not presented in such a way as to make them seem more interesting than they actually are.

The research in the article is straightforward and clear.  The analysis is not biased or sugarcoated in any way, and the main goal seems to be to help the reader understand all the scientific terms, rather than get a subjective point across.

The reporter did a very good job of answering questions about the topic.  When I first started reading the article, I was skeptical as to whether there could be logic behind the claim that DNA isn’t the main component of genetics.  I also was confused by some of the terminology, but by the end of the article, both problems had been solved.

The sources quotes in the article seemed very credible and I had no trouble believing them.  Three doctors of various subjects were quoted about different aspects of genetics, and what they had to see seemed perfectly believable to me.

Because the story was about such a controversial idea that shakes the foundations of what we know, it was important to me that the writer qualify what he was saying.  He did a good job with this, least of all through the research he cited.  Also, he made it very clear that even though all these new discoveries are being made about the genome, there is still so much that we don’t know, and that we as readers need to keep that in mind.

Even though I am not a huge fan of science, and I struggle to understand it, this article was very interesting to me, and I thought the writer did an excellent job of presenting his work in an un-sensationalized manner.

I am a television junkie. Well, maybe not that bad. It started at a young age, when I would get up early every Sunday morning to watch “Magic School Bus” and “Wishbone.” I watch “The Office,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives,” and “Entourage” religiously. I’ve also seen every episode of “Veronica Mars” and dozens of episodes of “Gilmore Girls.” “Veronica Mars” was canceled a few years ago, as was “Gilmore Girls.” However,the rest of my shows are still on air. and come every Thursday and Sunday night, I sit in front of my computer and watch my favorite shows online.

“The Office” in particular has an amazing website to keep me tided over until the next episode. The website has is laid out with a bunch on manilla folders, giving it an office-y feel. There are sections and activities for each character on the show, as well as behind-the-scenes interviews and footage.

The show is focused on an office branch of Dunder Mifflin Paper, with about ten or so employees. One of the main characters, Michael Scott, is played by the wonderful Steve Carrell. He is the boss of the Scranton branch. His character likes to make up his own words, and one of the things they have on the website is a dictionary of all these Michael-isms.

Two of the other characters on the show, Andy and Angela, are engaged to be married. Recently, the people who run the website put up an interactive gift registry for the wedding, so fans can see what king of presents Andy and Angela want. When you click on the registry, it takes you to a whole new website devoted to Angela and Andy’s wedding. There are tabs for the actual event, the honeymoon, the meal, the dress, the reception, the bachelor party, and many more. There is also a part of the site devoted to their relationship so far, including how they met and how he proposed.

Yet another character, Meredith, is like the synical, unappreciated member of staff. She kind of slips under the radar. Her part on the website is a blog, where she goes into detail about her personal life and things that go on in the office, and offers her opinions on them.

Finally, my favorite character is Dwight. He is the paranoid and irascible third in command at the office. He also has a blog, but unlike Meredith’s, it is more a list of complaints that he has rather than information about what’s going on in the office. He writes a new blog every week. The most recent one was about is ancient uncle invading his house and demanding that Dwight let him stay there.

The interactive Office website is a highly entertaining way to interact with one of my favorite shows. It keeps me, and countless other fans entertained during the week, making sure that we don’t lose interest. I know a little time spent on the site each week always convinces me to tune in.