Writing Prompt: Tongue Twisters

Write a clever tongue twister.

Common known tongue twister:  How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?

Some other fun twisters:  How much seed could a sunflower seed sow if a sunflower seed could sow seed?

Twenty tiny tulip’s tickled ten tom turkeys, the ten tom turkey’s tickled twenty tiny tulips too.

Have fun!

Writing Prompts: Habitat Descriptions

Describe a bat cave a hundred feet below the earth where the bats are 3 foot tall, and there is a troll guarding the entrance.

Describe a pig pen where the pigs have wings and talons instead of legs and hooves.

Describe a spider web made by spider servants for a spider queen. 

Describe an underwater home for a boy/girl with gills and webbed feet.

Writing Prompt: Global Warming Impact of PC/Internet

     In January my husband came home from work and shared a blurb he heard on the radio.  Old news now, but still relevant.  The station stated that, ”doing  a single search through Google uses as much energy as boiling a cup of tea”.  I thought it was interesting so I did an energy consuming search to find details.  Google is my search engine of choice as well as millions of other Internet users.  Naturally they were at the top of the hit list in the media coverage.
     According to an article in Times Online called, “Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches, New research lifts lid on links between CO2 emissions and Internet searches”, a comparative to other CO2 emissions makes it sound like we are headed for global disaster by Internet use.  “A recent report by Gartner, the industry analysts, said the global IT industry generated as much greenhouse gas as the world’s airlines – about 2% of global CO2 emissions.” 
     The article took it a step further to demonize the use of Internet sites with graphics.  Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University Physicist,  ”research indicates that viewing a simple web page generates about 0.02g of CO2 per second. This rises tenfold to about 0.2g of CO2 a second when viewing a website with complex images, animations or videos”.  Which means that anyone with a site riddled with graphics are making CO2 emissions worse by the second.
     To add more fuel to the CO2 emissions research John Buckley, a British environmental consultant, made further claims about Google searches but worse is this claim, “simply running a PC generates between 40g and 80g per hour”.  If you are like me you use your computer every day for at least 8 hours, and do numerous searches. 
     To cut back on computer use, I’d have to waste gas going 30 miles each way to spend the entire day at a library.  Which after using a CO2 emission calculator is putting 73.365lbs of CO2 emission into the atmosphere.  Hmmm… the Internet consumptions seems to pale in comparison.  Based on the above mentioned numbers I used the highest measurements for my personal use which is 80g/hr for 8 hours equals 640g  just to run my PC.  Using .2g a second for 4 hours of search and graphic websites ,which is a high estimate, equals 2280g.  So at most, I am emitting 7.7533lbs a day.  I’m actually saving the environment 65.6117lbs a day by staying at home using my computer vs. taking a trip to the closest library. 

Writing Prompt:  Do your own comparison of personal emissions.  Using the conversion site listed below measure your gas emissions.  One gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 19.564lbs of CO2 emissions.  In case you need a refresher of grams to pounds conversion it is 454g = 1lb.  When you’ve finished your calculations write an article based on your findings.  Also suggest ways people can save energy when using their PC and doing Internet searches.  For example: You might advise webmasters to reduce the use of graphics on their websites.     

Sources:

Times Online, Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches, New research lifts lid on links between CO2 emissions and internet searches: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5489134.ece

Conversion calculator for gas emissions: http://www.b-e-f.org/GreenTags/faq_pages/calculator.shtm under the driving section of the page.

Writing Prompt: Inalienable Rights

     Write a chronoligical timeline of natural (inalienable) rights.  Among this timeline discuss the controversies that played a part in the adoption of natural rights by governments. 

     For example, you can discuss the controversy over who influenced Thomas Jefferson when he drafted the Declaration of Independence.  Most scholars believe it was John Locke since Jefferson used his model with only a slight adaption.  While some scholars believe he had different influences.

Writing Prompt: Freedom of Speech and Press

     Was President Obama right to come out and tell the public to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh? What does this say about his fear of criticism? Is he really that paranoid?  What does this say about his opinion on the intellect of Americans?

Something to think about:
     John Milton, 17th Century Poet said, “Let all with something to say be free to express themselves.  The true and sound will survive.  The false and unsound will be vanquished.  Government should keep out of the battle and not weigh the odds in favor of one side or the other “.  His principles of the “self-righting process” and “open marketplace of ideas” were promoted by Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson took it to heart and argued that, “any government which can not stand up to published criticism deserves to fall”.-1   Further Thomas Jefferson who was highly scrutinized by the press said, “The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.” –Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57″. -2 

  Sources:

1-  Terror on the internet, The New Arena, the New Challenges; Gabriel Weimann. 2006.  Chap. 7 Balancing Security and Civil Liberties, pg. 232.  also available online for preview: http://books.google.com/books?id=19iCbNOoYmIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Thomas+Jefferson+a+government+that+could+not+stand+up+under+criticism+deserved+to+fall&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPP1,M1 

2-  Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government- Freedom of the Press: http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1600.htm