THE WORLD'S HOTTEST PEPPER

With everyone writing their junior themes on hot topics in America, I figured I would blog about one hot topic as well. I just found out that a new pepper has been crowned as the world's hottest pepper! WOW!!! The Naga Viper had previously held the crown for the pepper with the most heat, but this is no longer the case. The Trinidad Scorpion Butch T. is now the world's hottest pepper.
Some people may wonder, isn't taste subjective? Won't everyone have a different opinion about whether or not a pepper is the hottest? I know I thought this, but there is actually a scale to measure the heat of peppers! It's called the Scoville Scale, and it measures peppers "by tracking the presence of a chemical compound in chilis" Who knew??
The Trinidad Scorpion Butch T. measure at 1.46 million heat units on the scale, which is one spicy pepper! In case you're wondering, the average Jalapeno falls at around 5,000 heat units.  Many of you may be laughing, but I am serious, this pepper is hot. When making salsa used with the pepper, they have to wear body suits and chemical masks to protect themselves from the dangerous fumes.
I think it's important that everyone takes a break and has time to relax when writing their junior theme. Today, my break was reading about the new Trinidad Scorpion Butch T. pepper, and it was wonderful. So if you ever find yourself stressed, and in need of something to do, don't be afraid to just look around on the internet. You may find something really interesting!
You can read the full article here.

High Five/Junior Theme Post #2

Over spring break I've been trying to make a dent in some of the books and articles I plan to read for my junior theme. I've read about a book and a half so far, and numerous articles, and I've found myself bombarded with loads of information that I don't know what to do with. I'm sure others have come across this problem as well. I know what I want my paper to be about, and I want to include almost everything I've learned, but it is so hard to narrow all the information down and squeeze it into 5-7 pages...double spaced. It's not that I have started to write my paper, not even close, but even this early on in the process I'm worried about how I am going to organize everything, which information I am going to include, and which information I am going to leave out. I believe that this is the hardest part about writing any kind of paper. It's easy to just write down everything you know about the topic, but narrowing it down is the hard part.
As we have consistently stated in class, it is so important to have empathy for the reader, and if someone provides too many facts, quotes, figures etc. in their paper, it becomes overwhelming. This is what is so challenging for me. My topic is so broad, and can be looked upon in so many different ways that I don't know how I am going to decide what information I want to add, and how I want to organize it. I'm sure many people are going through the same problem, but it's definitely going to be a struggle.

On a lighter note, the High Five Choir was featured on NBC Nightly News tonight with Brian Williams! It was broadcast at five-thirty, but the video is online, and you can watch it here. Just click on the Making a Difference tab!

High Five on Channel Five!!

Hey everyone! Tune in to channel five today, during Brian William's Nightly News at 5:30 to see New Trier's High Five Choir! We will be featured on the Make a Difference segment during the last five minutes. DVR IT!!

Meta Blog Post

Please look at "Slavery Film Controversy in Winnetka"

Junior Theme Post #1

Last Monday our class began research on one of the most daunting junior year projects of them all...Junior Theme. We had to come up with four or five "why" questions about American issues that we wanted to research. One of my questions that I came up with originally was "why do Americans continue to be intolerant of people with disabilities?" I thought this was a good question, there was a lot that I could research on it historically, but then a few problems arose. I was faced with the task of coming up with a modern example of such intolerance, which was difficult to find. One example I came up with was the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign, a campaign that I recently blogged about aimed at stopping the use of the r-word. But this campaign alone was not enough to base my whole paper off of.
At first, I was extremely frustrated that I could not find an example of modern day intolerance. While I know there still is intolerance today, there was no big event that I could base my paper on. But then I began to realize that this is not such a bad thing. Clearly there has been much improvement with the treating of individuals with disabilities. America has taken great strides in the understanding, and awareness of physical and mental disabilities. People with disabilities are landing roles on tv shows, and in movies, campaigns like Spread the Word are taking place, and more and more opportunities keep coming for people with special needs.

Beckham's Baby Surprise vs. Japan Disaster

Today I was on the front page of Yahoo while going to check my email. As I looked at the recent news, one of the first articles that popped up was about David Beckham and his wife Victoria, and how they are expected a baby. Don't get me wrong, this isn't bad news, but I was surprised that it was paired right next to an article about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It seemed to me that stories of the natural disasters in Japan would be given more coverage than recent celeb baby news.
It definitely makes me wonder what is considered important news. The death toll in Japan is continuously climbing, hundreds of thousands of people are evacuating, but still, many people feel that the personal life of their favorite celebrities takes the cake over groundbreaking news. I feel that the country should be more aware of what is going on around them, and while Japan is certainly getting a lot of coverage, I feel they should be getting more. Next time you're on Yahoo, or any news site for that matter, look around and see what the top stories are. You may be surprised at what you find.

Spread the Word to End the Word

I know that Jenn has recently blogged about this, but it's such an important campaign that I thought I would blog about it as well. Spread the Word to End the Word was a campaign that took place on March 2nd, and it's message is to stop the use of the word "retarded". This word is not only hurtful to people with mental and physical disabilities, but it is insulting to their friends, and family, as well.
In a recent study, it was calculated that the "r-word" is used once every three seconds on twitter. If it is used that often of twitter, it must be used more by people in everyday conversation. This is a staggering statistic and needs to be changed. Next time you hear the word being said, make it clear that it is offensive, so hopefully in the future it won't be used.

For more information, check out http://www.r-word.org/