"Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff"- Frank Zappa

This gem from the immortal Mr. Zappa hits the nail on the head. There are a seemingly infinite number of reasons why communism doesn't and will never work- maybe it's the constant attack it comes under from the rest of the free world, or maybe it's because communist governments are always underfunded, or maybe it's something to do with the dictators. But all of these problems run in the same vein, and that is that people want something essentially. It might just be stuff like the ridiculous things that we spend too much money on, like designer underwear, or completely useless things like Beats by Dre; but more likely what they want is the stuff that we take for granted, like social media, the ability to travel outside of the country, freedom of the press, imported goods, or in the case of North Korea, food. People really just want to own themselves, which is essentially not allowed in the communist state breakdown. And that's why communism will go down in the history books as #2 in the Cold War.

-Dominic Curran

"The Release of Atomic Energy Has Not Created A New Problem, It Has Merely Made More Urgent The Necessity Of Solving The Old One"- Albert Einstein

Nuclear proliferation. if there's one thing that still gets the leaders of the world up in arms, it's the leaders of the world arming themselves. The idea of a nuclear holocaust has been putting fear into the hearts of the world since 1945 when the Enola Gay decimated that first Japanese coastal city, ending one war and starting the next, and since then, as Einstein says in the above quote, the world has had a new sense of urgency about war. No longer would countries wholeheartedly commit hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground- the threat of a 'football' was far more urgent. War was never the same again.

Dominic Curran

On Zappa's Quote

Brendan Ransom
Writing II; Professor Mitchell Jackson
25 March 2014

“Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff”

Though the quote treats externally on one of the primary reasons for the lack of sustained Communist success throughout history, it speaks more deeply to one of the fundamental characteristics of humankind: selfishness. The word has inarguably negative connotations, but it must be noted that the development of selfishness has been vital to human survival and evolution. Zappa’s point, I think, is that it is time for humanity as a race to move beyond the “hunter-gatherer” phase and become more enlightened as a whole. This means relinquishing grasp on the archaic intellectual ideals that are so detrimental to intellectual and cultural progress. I would argue that among these is the compulsive clinging to one’s “natural right to property”. Insistence on this ideal in society springs from distrust of one’s fellow man, and perhaps in oneself as well, stony skepticism in the face of the idea that men can put aside the self-serving instinct that dominates society in the interest of a common good. This skepticism is understandable based on the general character of men, but it is high time we embrace intellectual and cultural evolution.

Young Foolish Men vs. Old Foolish Men

It's a matter of the inexperienced vs. the experienced, old time vs. new. In both cases there are times when young men are fools and when old men are fools. Lack of experience has the old men believing young men are fools and lack of experience in the modern time has the young men believing that old men are fools. In reality, both are fools in their own respect and at the same level due to their own lack of experience. Old men may have lived longer and have gained more experience than young men, but times have changed and what was useful to an old man when he was 20 years old surely won't be useful to a 20 year old now. Those experiences that could aid a man regardless of age that older men may have is the ultimate source of young men's foolishness and the new, modern experiences young men have over old is the source of old men's foolishness.

Rahma Cali

Such Subjects Overwhelm Art

“No movie has ever been able to provide a catharsis for the Holocaust, such subjects overwhelm art.” - Roger Ebert

         I’m not sure if I’m in a position to say if any movie was able to provide catharsis for the Holocaust. But, if that’s the general consensus amongst people, I’d have to disagree with the reason that the quote provides. “Such subjects overwhelm art”, I find that ridiculous. Things like the Holocaust don’t overwhelm art it overwhelms people. I don’t think that most people could sit and watch a movie about the Holocaust that truly depicts what happened to people in the Holocaust. I’m a firm believer that peace and healing comes through people telling the complete and honest truth. How can films about the Holocaust be cathartic when filmmakers don’t even make works of art that portray the complete and honest truth? That’s not to say that filmmakers do this because they want to, but rather, they realize that their audience would never be able to stomach the truth. They realize that people would not be able to accept the atrocities that people had to endure at the hand of their fellow man. It overwhelms people to face the truth of how inhumane humans are capable of being and the ease with which we are able to be that way. Because of all this, I believe that the lack of catharsis for the Holocaust couldn’t come from the limitations of art—in it’s true form, art has no limitations. The lack of catharsis stems from peoples’ tendency to be overwhelmed in the face of an unhampered truth.

                                                                                 Isaro Carter

Good People Do Bad Things When There Are No Options

Good people do bad things when there are no options. This is interesting to think about. Have you ever been in a situation where the choice is only up to you? How do you decide what to do? I am currently taking an ethics class where we learn what is basically right or wrong. I have seen so many people do wrong things being in a clinical setting. After taking an ethics class and having to write about an ethical dilemma it really stuck out to me how people are choosing the wrong decision. It is never anything to harm someone else that I see, but even just someone leaving a piece of gauze they just used on a previous patient on the ground. It seems as if they don't really think about basic things you should do that are right. People just seem to always choose the wrong thing - as if it is the easy way out. I've also seen people do bad or wrong things when they are bored. I've heard an old friend say "I didn't actually want to do drugs, I just had nothing else to do." This person I know is not a bad person at all either. That also seems very common, you tend to hear "he does bad things, or he chose the wrong path in life, but he isn't a bad person."

Atomic Energy

"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one" -Einstein


The atomic bomb is the easy way out, if you can really call it easy. It disconnects the hitter from the problem. You don't see the people you'll kill. You don't risk the lives of your soldiers . At the push of a button, the ability to wipe out a nation is possible. Technology and all that it brought has made war a series of attacks from a safer distance. It's not even just the atomic bomb, but also the drone strikes. Hitting a target from afar while you cross your fingers and hope no one else gets hit. The ability to risk the lives of innocent people is now even easier because we have our eyes on the bigger picture. Kind of like what Spock said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". But in this case it is not the sacrifice of oneself, but the sacrifice of the innocent people who were probably just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

~ Laila Esa

How to Fill a Page 101

Hunter S. once said “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro”. I have no idea what this quote is trying to say. Maybe when situations get weird, the weird turn on their professional weirdness and handle the situation like a pro. I have always heard the saying “when the tough get going, the going gets tough” or maybe it’s the other way around, I’m not really sure. I have no idea how I am going to fill this whole page with thoughts or ideas about this strange quote. Maybe that’s the test, to give you an odd topic that you might not be able to relate to and see what you can come up with. Or maybe I am way off and I should be able to intelligently write to this quote. In all honesty, it really doesn’t matter because I closed my first deal today and feel great right now. Ok, back to the topic at hand. I’m just over a half page written right now and I really have not said anything about anything so far. I am curious to know what the people around me are writing right now. Do they have something intelligent to say about this quote or are they just as lost as I am. I see their pens filling the pages similar to myself, but I have no idea if what they are writing makes any sense or not. So I have three minutes to go and by some miracle I have been able to keep this pen moving the prior seven minutes. If only I could come up with some thought about “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro”.  Rereading the quote just then still doesn’t help, it leaves me as puzzled as I was eight minute ago. On the bright side, I will be done in less than two minutes and won’t have to worry about trying to fill this page. Well done professor, you stumped me on this one.

~ Blake Famularo

"You can't go home again."

There's a similar quote I've heard dozens of times about how home is never the same. I can't remember the exact quote but it's something along those lines. It's sort of true. When I return home for spring break, my blue and pink plaid comforter will be folded tightly around my mattress, exactly where I left it. My dresser will still be against my right side wall containing the same exact clothes that were there when I left at the end of January. My desk will still be untouched, my nightside table will probably still have an empty water bottle resting on it, and my old shoes will still be lined up against my closet door. My room will not have changed. My house will not have changed. But I have and so have the people living in it. My twelve-year-old brother will be texting girls and my twenty-two-year-old brother is practically be a "real person" now. My Mom even started dating again. We all have had new experiences and have grown as individuals. Our dynamic changes every time I return home. So no, I can I can never return to the home I grew up in, the home I sometimes crave, but I can still find or make a new home with the people or things I love.
-Lauren Budinsky

You can't go home again

Home is the place we return to at the end of the day. It is where we find comfort and feel safe. The inability to return to this place is not just a physical inability, but it is one that originates from a mental crossover. To say "You can't go home again" means that even if you do return, you return as someone different. It's as if you've crossed over an imaginary line in which going home at the end of the day is no longer a normal or regular part of your day. You've carried this undesired load that isn't welcome in a place like home. This new lifestyle, this new you, this thing that you might've done that allowed you to step over the line causes you to become uncomfortable within a place as simple as home.

~Laila Esa

'Prose is architecture, not interior decoration' - Ernest Hemingway

It's hard to think of any other writer who could have created this quote. Hemingway was a man of no frills, just thrills; a real man's man's man. Comparing this alongside another famous Hemingway quote, the so- called 'Iceberg Theory', concerning writing being the tip of the iceberg and the subtext and backstory being the remaining 7/8ths of the story, we get further insight into his creative writing process. I am of two minds about Hemingway; there's no denying the man's intense genius, as one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century. His style is certainly refreshing; a step away from the previous normalcy of mind numbing descriptive detail like Faulkner. Hemingway was an architect of words and put them up like the literal skyscrapers of America that rose as his contemporaries; bare, glorious, but still bare. But that was his style. If every writer gave us only a framework of words, reading would be a cold, unfurnished experience. We need the architecture, but without the interior of the extravagant word, no one would ever really appreciate the elaborate inside of literature.

- Dominic Curran