I Am a Ponarvian
Some of you have already scoured the dictionary in vain for a definition of the word "Ponarvian." One of my greatest ambitions is to get this word safely into Websters where it belongs. Until that happy time, the following definition will have to do:
PONARV (PO narv) n. [acronym] A project of no apparent redeeming value. Hence, Ponarvian: one who pursues such projects.
It is my contention that not some, but MOST of the greatest human triumphs in art, science, and technology have their root in the humble ponarv. All ponarvians, whatever their age, are children who simply like to play. If you ask them to justify their behavior, they will be unable to do so, or will provide what can only be described as a playful response. Basically, they just can't help it. They like to play.
Throughout history, all great ponarvians have been surrounded by suffocating masses of anti-ponarvians. The anti-ponarvian is a gloomy person who divides the world into work and play, and who sees play as a regrettable lapse in the vital and unceasing pursuit of work. They define work as an activity which leads DIRECTLY to something valuable, and the only things they value are those things like food and shelter which enable them to survive long enough to procreate and produce more workers. To an anti-ponarvian, play is like sleep, a biological necessity which interferes with work and should therefore be minimized. They love to recite the fable of the grasshopper and the ant but never stop to consider that this story was written by an ant. They are the early birds: up at the crack of dawn, catching worms.
Poets and pure mathematicians are ponarvians by definition. Mathematicians are sometimes forgiven by the anti-ponarvian masses because the equations they drop to one side in their foolish pursuit of elegant theorems and pleasing symmetries can be used to build factories which produce canons which can then be used to level factories (canons and factories are "useful"). But poets are eternally damned in the eyes of the anti-ponarvians because, after all, there is no money to made in poetry.
It is one of nature's greatest ironies that these very poets and mathematicians so despised by the anti-ponarvians, these idle dreamers and crackpot inventors, are the very source of all the gadgetry and innovation which anti-ponarvians hold in such high esteem.
Perhaps some of the cranks are not just average cranks and are, instead, modern day Herschel 's and Avery 's; the ideas of some of Kahn 's cranks are simply victimized by “obvious,” and “self-evident,” presently prevailing theories that are guided by “mistaken assumptions,” (Sacks, 153) and will be discovered to be wrong—just as “Newtonian optics and Lockean sensationalism,” (Sacks, 153) were—to make room for the more fundamentally profound and correct theories revolutionized by the cranks—in same same way that Louis Verrey 's theories on perception were lent credence after several decades of rejection and oppression. Or, perhaps, parts of ideas purposed by cranks could actually shed some light on potential discoveries, even if an idea as a whole is flawed—much like the way through which a series of antiquated cranks ' ideas eventually evolved into sound, scientific discovery when molded properly by scientists in Miller 's essay. It is worth taking into consideration the prospect that that which is professed to be known is actually just another stage of failure waiting to be overturned by the revolutionary theories of those identified as cranks, or more scientifically consistent theories extracted from their more radical theories. Then again, maybe I am just a crank in the
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Desert Solitaire aims to draw attention to the activities of a man voluntarily isolated in nature. It seeks to identify the strife that Abbey faces with modern day human’s treatment of his nature. As such, the argument that Abbey poses in one his earlier chapters Rocks is, that the Modern Day man is destructive and cannot be trusted to preserve nature as is.
playing God. The balance of nature is put to the ultimate test as a man by the
“And the Band Played On” was an HBO movie that illustrated the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and early 1990s. The movie touched on subjects concerning the reaction of the gay community, the heterosexual community, and the medical community. It showed not only the research in AIDS, but also the way that the US government dealt with it. The movie expressed the consequences the gay community suffered, the plight of the medical community in researching the disease, and the issue of government response to it.
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My perception of our world is that racism exists everywhere, even in the land of liberty, America. I am aware of the fact that there is racism against not only blacks, but also whites, Asians, along with people from all other ethnicities. I believe racism is deplorable in any form. Therefore I do my best not to be racist in any way.
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Peer pressure is probably one of the biggest issuses in high school, as a teen its likely you’ve experienced the effect of peer influence in a number of different areas sometimes teens may have to dress a certain way and act a certain way or they will not be accepted. Peer influence is not necessarily a bad thing we are all influenced by our peers both negatively and positively at any age. Teens are sometimes pressured into doing things they don’t want to do may be that they have to bully someone or fight it could be any little thing and sometimes it take a big toll on that person who is being pressured to do these things to fit in. peer pressure can effect some people for the rest of their lives in many different ways.
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After hearing the quote I thought about what I did in my life to fit in, and realized that what a person wears, buys, or listens to, doesn't create who a person is. Peer pressure throws out the thought of being who you want to be; peer pressure is more reminiscent of "be like everybody else."