How do I know what I know?

I know the things I know basically from what has been taught to me or things I have experienced firsthand.  If we don't see things or witness things for ourselves, I guess we don't really know anything but as humans we assume and trust other humans to what they say or know, even though we may not know for certain.  I think that if humans only believed things they have experienced, then the world we know would most likely be a completely different place.  For all we know, if people didn't take leaps of faith in trusting other people, the world could be centuries behind in technology or advancement, or if more people trusted others, we could be centuries ahead of our time.  This is a very speculative discussion that many may have trouble understanding, but I think that as humans, the majority are wise enough to decipher and figure out what is real and what isn't

Not Examined Life / Modern Gadfly

I think that the non examined life is still worth living.  I don't think that every little aspect of our lives should be dissected and thought about for every single thing we do.  There are certain times where it is important to think about and examine out lives very closely and carefully, like when choosing a college, career, marriage, where to live, etc.  If we spend our whole lives worry about whether to examine every little thing, then we could be wasting important moments because of our focus on examining life so much.  In all, some things should be examined, but some little decisions we can brush over.

I think that a modern Socrates is David Letterman.  His talk show has been going on for almost 30 years now and he has always featured provocative material, although with a humorous aspect. When dealing with politicians or even celebrities he pokes fun at their ideas or thoughts that seem to not benefit the American people, and even on an event like 9/11 he got really serious and had a very motivating monolouge directed towards Al-Queda

Eulogy

Gordon Bentley was born in Chicago on May 31, 1995.  He first lived in the Wrightwood neighborhood until he moved to Old Irving Park in 1997.  He attended Lasalle Languave Academy from 2000 to 2009 where he took Italian as a second language.  While at LaSalle, he liked to read A LOT of books and never had videogames growing up. He has a passion for music and a music library (digital and vinyl) that is constantly growing. Gordon was raised Jewish and he had his Bar-Mitzvah in seventh grade in 2008, but after that gravitated to being more non-religious.  He began high school at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in 2009, where he played sports for the boys 16" Softball team in the fall, and did Volleyball and Lacrosse in the spring.  During his summers he would work at Phantom Lake YMCA Camp in Mukwonago, Wisconsin.  He went to this camp for 8 years and in 2012 finished the Staff Development Program.  In school he liked English and History classes the best and continued to take Italian through his junior year. Gordon never liked math of any sort but some Science interests him such as aerospace or outserpace.  He is interesed in many colleges including the University of Michigan, UW-Madison, the University of Illinois, NYU, Boston University, Colombia Univserity, Harvard University, and more.  He has always been a Democrat or a liberal, but not through parental or other influence pushed upon him through school, etc. but through reading political artlices and watching the news and finding out his values and morals.  He wanted to vote for Barack Obama in 2012 but unfortunately doesn't turn 18 until May, so he'll have to wait until 2014 to vote in an election.  His future plans are unknown, but is more interested in the fields of buisness, economics, politics or even government. 

Tell Tale Heart

The tell tale heart is a story of a seemingly insane man (or woman) telling the story of how he or she murdered an old man.  I think that it is being told in court to a judge and jury, and the narrator is pleading for his or her sanity and reason for the murder.  The narrator is scared of "an evil eye"  that the old man posesses, and each night for a week plots to kill him.  Then he finally ups and does it.  But a neighbor hears the ruckuss and calls the police, who then arrive on the scene, to investigate.  When the police do arrive the narroator freaks out and gives himself away due to the alleged beating of the heart.  I think that the narrator is somewhat crazy, but overall sane, the beating of the heart could be the death watches, a type of beetle heard before in the walls, but murering someone because of an eye is a little crazy.

Kick the Can

It was a hot summer day sometime a few years ago.  I was with some of the kids in my neighborhood, Danny, John, Owen, Conley, and Wyatt.  We were all bored of playing hide and seek and tag, so we decided to frind a new game to play.  Danny, who had brought us all cans of Minute Maid Lemonade, suddenly had the idea of playing "Kick the Can."  Nobody had ever played it before, so we all took some time listening to the rules.  When we all understood it, Owen volunteered to be the person who was the tagger, and everbody else ran to hide.  Soon enough he coaught Conley, and she was put in the "jail" zone, which Owen tried defending, but he was overwhelmed and someone kicked the can, so Conley out, and this went on for hours; people getting in jail and then getting out.  Eventually, everyone but I got in jail, and if I wanted to get them all out, I had to kick the can.  So using strategy, I went around some houses to hide and then snuck up around back.  I then hid behind a tree, and waited until Owen had his back turned, and sprinted to the can!  I was halfway there, but then Owen saw me!  I had to arc around, but I still got to the can and kicked it before Owen tagged me, and I freed everybody.  We would play this game all summer, and played it for years, and it would sometimes end in watergun fights to cool everybody off.

A Whiter Shade of Pale

My isong is by Procol Harum, and was made in early 1967, which was soon to be called "the Summer of Love" and when hippies and psychedelia were at thier highest (haha, thats an accidental pun).  The meaning of the lyrics to my song are very complex.  The first few lines are about dancing somewhere, and then doing cartwheels, but it says they are on solid ground, but the the narrator is feeling seasick, which is one of the many paradoxes in this song.  The rest of the next lines eem to have ro correlation or meaning.  Finally the chorus seems to have the most meaning, and makes sense.  It goes, the miller told his tale, and her face just first ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale, so the millers story scared the girl, and her face turned even whiter than thought possible.  The rest of the song lyrics also seem to make no apparent sense and don't seem to have any specific order.  These lyrics also have the same randomness as in the first part of the song, so I think the lyrics are just nonsense lyrics, similar to The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carrol in Alice in Wonderland.  The band members probably did this on purpose, because this was a time where young people were rebelling against the norm, and tried to break from the establishment by having lyrics that make no sense, but still had a popular song. 

Life on the Reservation

Life on a Native American Reservation is very tough and unfair.  These reservations were set up in the mid-1800's by the Federal Government to remove Native Americans from the everyday life of "Normal" America, and were treated extremely unfairly.  The lifestyle on these reservations is compared to third World/ developing countries.  These reservations are primarily located in the western United States, where it is very hard to cultivate crops and many Native Americans had to comepletely change thier lifestiles from farming to ranching. Out of the nations 550 something tribes, there are only 310 reservations, so many have to share a reservation or don't even have one to live on  Some of the poorest counties in America are counties with Indian Reservations on them.  Ever since their founding in the 19th century, they have been poorly kept by the government and have little funding, and most living there rely on food stamps and other donations.  These reservations are still in terrible condition and many are left unkept, just like the one in Smoke Signals.