Texting Conversation with a Friend (discussion, thoughts)

June 15th, 2011

My friend and I were having a discussion about homosexuality after he said he didn't agree with it, mostly due to, it seemed, his religious beliefs. I do not intend to exploit him or make him look bad by posting about this, I simply wanted to share it. My friend does not, as he said, have a problem with gays and lesbians themselves, as people, but the choice they made. I discussed with him how we think homosexuality comes about; whether it's natural, influenced, or a choice. I think that, depending on the situation, it could be natural or a choice. My friend doesn't think it can be natural. His stance was it is a choice, or if it appears to start from a young age then it was mostly likely influenced by something in the child's life. I think influence can definitely play a huge role, but I believe that there is something in the brain or genetics that can make these influences more, well influential to these certain people than to others. I'm sure there will be lots of scientific studies about this in the future, and I know there are some now even, and I'm anxious to see the results. We also discussed why it was that homosexuality is wrong, based on his beliefs. I would like to share a specific part of the conversation we had. Please feel free to comment on it and leave your thoughts on the subject.

Raise Your Voice (a collection, informational message)

Hey all of my lovely readers!
I am starting to get back into the swing of writing again, and I have decided to start a social commentary poetry collection called Raise Your Voice. For those of you who don't know what it is, Social Commentary is a where someone makes a point or expresses an opinion based on a social problem or idea. It could be pro or con to the idea. Usually, Social Commentary is used to put down a certain idea and try to end it. I was inspired to do this by an art project we started in school. For my project I am doing my commentary on school bullying.
There is a lot I feel strongly about in the world today and in the past, and there are lots of things I hope to see change to in the future. So i decided to take it beyond just my one project at school. All the poems in the Raise Your Voice collection will be about things I see wrong in the world and that bothers me.

*To Ban Or Not Ban (a thematic essay)

To Ban or Not To Ban

A thematic essay on William Golding's Lord of the Flies

Written December 2010

William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies is highly controversial in today’s society in many ways. Lord of the Flies offers a chilling and terrifying view of a situation where a group of boys are stranded on an island together and forced to survive without adults and their authority. Their civilized ways slowly digress into savagery as the instinct for survival takes over the need for order. The reader can only watch helplessly as this group of boys loses their childhood and innocence to instinct, cruelty, and even murder. This realistic situation was designed to express Golding’s theory that “man is inherently evil,” especially when there is no authority or law to suppress it. Ironically, despite the excess of violence in the novel, Golding’s work won the Nobel Peace Prize for literature. Golding’s winning of this prestigious award is one of the controversial subjects over this book. Other debates over the book include interpretations of symbolism, quality of the ending, the writing style Golding used, and how long the boys were actually stranded on the island. However, one of the fieriest disputes about Lord of the Flies is its appropriateness for use in schools, including its accessibility to children and young adults.