Comment on Another Blog

Here is the link - http://viveelche.blogspot.com/2011/12/whistle-while-you-work.html?showComment=1322879533662#c427896032946798986

Pretty Lights' Filling Up the City Skies

If I was forced to live on a deserted island and had to listen to one album 24-7 I would choose Filling Up the City Skies by Pretty Lights, released in 2008. This album is beautiful, soft, calm, and expressive. I find myself listening to it for hours and it is one of the few albums I have come across that does not contain a single song I do not enjoy. I would find it easy to sleep, work, eat, and lounge to this album all the time. My favorite song on this album is Solamente, which is a beautiful, soulful song. None of the songs from Filling Up the City Skies have any lyrics, they are all classified as electronic music, and much like Skrillex, do not fit neatly into one subgenre. The music is slow-paced, and some of it has a sound of glitch-hop to it. I don't know if I could stand to listen to any other album for days on end and at every hour of the day and night. I would say I would want to hear Skrillex, but I would never want to ruin one of my favorite artist's albums for me. If I were to listen to Skrillex for hours on end, not only would I be unable to get any sleep but also the music itself would be ruined for me forever due to the constant repetition. If I have ever heard any album that would be soothing to listen to all hours of the day and night, it would definitely be Filling Up the City Skies by Pretty Lights.

Preventing Animal Abuse in America

In America today, there are an estimated 164.6 million cats and dogs owned as pets, and around 20,000 reported cases of animal cruelty each month. This statistic puts the number of animals abused in our country each year in the hundreds of thousands, not including cases that went unreported. I believe animals are God’s innocent creatures and that we are charged with their care and well-being, and that abusing an animal is one of the most heinous crimes one can commit. Despite increasing criminal penalties, animals continue to be abused and neglected in record numbers, suffering everything from dog fighting and beatings to starvation and filthy living conditions. Dealing with animal abuse and implementing a community-based system of prevention is essential to growth, health, and greatness of America.

Preventing animal abuse in America starts with creating awareness of animal cruelty and providing communities with the necessary tools to fight it. The timely reporting of animal cruelty cases to the authorities is essential to saving the lives of animals involved and bringing perpetrators to justice before any evidence disappears.  If an incentive were offered to crime stoppers and reporters of animal cruelty, more individuals would come forward with potentially life-saving information. Economic incentives to report crimes are an invaluable tool to police and the community. However, even an incentive as small as one’s name featured in the local paper would still encourage more people to come forward with reports of abuse.

Skrillex has Haters

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/nov/17/skrillex-review
Unfortunately for Skrillex, he has a decent amount of people who hate on his work. The reviewer claims that Skrillex's sound cannot really be classified as dubstep, and in that aspect he is absolutely right. Skrillex is not dubstep because he does not neatly fit into one subgenre of EDM. His varying rhythms, sounds, and BPMs of his songs are a mixture of electro-house, dubstep, drum and bass, and even the latin-inspired moombahton. Part of the reason so many people hate on Skrillex is because he came from absolute obscurity to world-wide famehood in just 2 years. Originally a member of the hardcore/emo band "From First to Last," Sonny Moore AKA Skrillex started his journey as a DJ in east Los Angeles where he would play at underground events. Just 1 year and thousands of followers later, international superstar DJ Deadmau5 signed Sonny Moore to his label, Mau5trap and Skrillex released his first EP entitled "My Name is Skrillex" which quickly rose to the top of the Beatport Top 10 list for EDM. Many people hate on Skrillex because his sound is unique, raw and un-classifiable  Others hate on Skrillex for being signed to the Mau5trap label. However, anyone with an eye for talent will see that Sonny Moore is an extremely gifted artist.

Eating Disorders

My best friend lay on the couch next to me, wilted and defeated looking, sobbing quietly into her hands.

                “I’ve been dealing with it for so long, it’s like a drug, it’s an addiction…”

Lost for words and clueless how to comfort her, I held and reassured her, promising that I would always be there, promising my shoulder to cry on and my unconditional love.

                “I just don’t understand,” I stammered, “you’re so beautiful, why? Why would you do this to yourself?”

My best friend that I’d had since I was 12 and the strongest, most resilient person I had ever known had just confessed to me that she was struggling with bulimia nervosa, a life-threatening disease that affects millions of young girls throughout the country. Bulimia is a diagnosable medical disorder which causes the sufferer to eat large quantities of food in a short period of time (known as “bingeing”) and then force herself to vomit (known as “purging”). Anorexia nervosa (commonly known as anorexia), another potentially life-threatening disorder, causes the sufferer to eat unhealthily small quantities of food and become obsessive and secretive about eating food. It has been estimated that more than 10 million young women struggle with eating disorders. Despite this information, research on eating disorders remains underfunded, insurance covering treatment remains sparse, and unhealthy body images among girls remain rampant.  Although the number of people with eating disorders is more than twice the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease, Alzheimer’s research receives almost 54 times the amount of funding as does research on eating disorders. Anorexia is the most deadly psychiatric disorder, claiming nearly 15% of its victims within 12 years. For girls affected by this disease, their eating disorder becomes an addiction, and the road to recovery can be as long and painful as the reform process for drug addicts. 

Conspiracy Theories

I believe that the public loves conspiracy theories because they are used to explain phenomena that we may otherwise not understand. Conspiracy theories are fun to hear and read about, whether they are true or not. People tend to be superstitious which is why the 11-11-11 date garnered so much media attention. I believe that the existence of a powerful, wealthy group of individuals controlling the world is not impossible. However, if such a group exists and said group really does control the entire world, then no meaningful information connecting the group with world occurances would be readily available. I do not believe that the vast majority of what we are fed through the media and government accurately displays even half of what is going on in America and around the world. I also do not listen to the radio and watch TV only sparingly due to my disdain for commercialism, mainstream entertainment, and the media as a whole. I do occasionally get the feeling that such media often attempts to brainwash viewers into believing a set of beliefs without offering alternative viewpoints. I believe is is up to every individual to resist these forces and to become more educated about the world and their surroundings.

Selling One's Soul to the Devil

I do not believe that if you go to a crossroads late at night in the south and play your guitar, the devil will show up and offer guitar playing skills in exchange for your eternal soul. I do, however, believe that it is possible to sell your soul to the devil. One can have a conversation with the devil just as one would have a conversation with God through prayer. The devil can offer you power, money, talent, and social status in exchange for following his evil agenda and doing evils things. This, in my opinion, is how one would sell their soul to the devil. Whether or not Robert Johnson actually sold his soul to the devil is between him and God. A listener can usually tell whether or not a musician has soul their soul to the devil by listening to the lyrics of their songs. Songs that glorify pain, evil deeds, greed, money, power, etc are influenced by evil forces whereas songs that contain good messages are influenced by God and good forces. I also like to refer to an artist selling their soul to the devil as selling out, or abandoning personal integrity for musical fame and fortune. Unfortunately, most popular artists today have sold out, as is evident by their increasingly depraved and degrading lyrics. This is one of the reasons why I prefer to listen to underground music, music I find on the internet, and music from obscure artists. It actually tends to be better quality due to the fact that the artists have not watered-down their musical talent to conform with the mainstream.