iWicked to the pissath power

For those who you who missed Les Miserables 2 weekends ago, here’s an ethical dilemma from the musical.

“Jean Valjean’s Conscience”

In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, the hero, Jean Valjean, is an ex-convict, living illegally under an assumed name and wanted for a robbery he committed many years ago. [Actually, no — he is only wanted for breaking parole.] Although he will be returned to the galleys — probably [in fact, actually] for life — if he is caught, he is a good man who does not deserve to be punished. He has established himself in a town, becoming mayor and a public benefactor. One day, Jean learns that another man, a vagabond, has been arrested for a minor crime and identified as Jean Valjean. Jean is first tempted to remain quiet, reasoning to himself that since he had nothing to do with the false identification of this hapless vagabond, he has no obligation to save him. Perhaps this man’s false identification, Jean reflects, is “an act of Providence meant to save me.” Upon reflection, however, Jean judges such reasoning “monstrous and hypocritical.” He now feels certain that it is his duty to reveal his identity, regardless of the disastrous personal consequences. His resolve is disturbed, however, as he reflects on the irreparable harm his return to the galleys will mean to so many people who depend upon him for their livelihood — especially troubling in the case of a helpless woman and her small child to whom he feels a special obligation. He now reproaches himself for being too selfish, for thinking only of his own conscience and not of others. The right thing to do, he now claims to himself, is to remain quiet, to continue making money and using it to help others. The vagabond, he comforts himself, is not a worthy person, anyway. Still unconvinced and tormented by the need to decide, Jean goes to the trial and confesses.

1. Did he do the right thing?  Why?  Why not? He did do the right thing. Even though he needed to help other people,he can’t sit back and watch someone go to jail who has done nothing wrong.
2. What do you think? I think that the judge should let him go with a short sentence for good behavior and because he learned his lesson and is helping people. It was the right thing to do turn himself in.

Here’s an ethical dilemma from http://www.goodcharacter.com. Read it through and answer the questions at the bottom through your blog. Be honest and natural in your answers. Please answer in full, complete sentences.

Sam knew something was weird the second he got to class on Tuesday morning. He saw kids whispering and pointing at him. Some were looking at him funny. He sat down next to his best friend and picked up the graded report the teacher, Mr. Crosby, had graded over the weekend. Sam looked at the ” A-“ and forgot about the rest of the class for a minute. He had worked hard at that report and was thrilled it had paid off. He looked up and saw a bunch of kids staring at him. While the teacher cleaned up the white board, Sam whispered to Dylan, “ What’s going on?” Dylan, looked down and said quietly, “Conner told everyone you copied your report from the internet.” “ But, that’s a lie!” Sam said. “I never cheat and everyone knows it.” He was hurt and angry. He couldn’t focus the rest of the morning in class.

At recess he went up to Conner and asked him if he had really told everyone he had cheated. “ It’s no big deal,” Conner scoffed. “ I only told a few people. Lighten up. It was just a joke.” Sam turned and walked away. He wanted to yell at Conner, or hit him, or something. He just wanted to make Conner feel as bad as Conner had made him feel.

For the next two days, Sam avoided Conner but Sam and Dylan made up as many lies as they could think of about Conner to get back at him. They told kids that he was jealous of anyone who did well in school because he almost failed fourth grade last year. They told the girl Conner liked that he still wet his bed sometimes. But it wasn’t helping. Sam was still just as mad at Conner. In fact, all he thought about now was Conner and what he had done.

On Friday, Mr. Crosby had all three boys stay to talk with him during recess. He told them they had until the end of recess to work out whatever it was that was going on between them. If they had not all forgiven each other by the end of recess, they had to go to the principal’s office. Then Mr. Crosby left the classroom.

The three boys stared angrily at each other waiting for someone to say something. Sam didn’t know what to say. All he knew was that he was tired of being mad and hurt. What could he do to make it stop? And what did Mr. Crosby mean by all forgive each other?

Guide questions:

1. Do you think all three boys need to apologize? Why or why not? I really don’t understand why adults always say that the kids in an argument have to apologize to each other even if they don’t mean it. As long as they understand what they did was wrong and forgave each other, then its fine.
2. Who do you think is the most guilty of doing wrong. Why? I think that doing something that you know is wrong is just… WRONG. There is no real bad part eccept for the guilt.
3. Do you think it will improve their friendship if Sam forgives Conner? I don’t think they will become friends because they both hurt each other. Conner should apologize to Sam for saying that he cheated, Sam should apologize to Conner for the other things he did, and Conner should forgive Sam because Sam only fought back. But Sam should still apologize to Conner because what he did was just as bad and very immature, if not, worse.
4. Have you ever been in a position like this? What happened? Would you make the same choices if you were in the position again? I was in Sam’s position. People have made up stupid rumors about me that were totally not true and it got me super omega totally angry at that person/people. I never retaliated like Same did because that would be just as bad. I made the right choice by not doing anything to that person because it was her/his choice and he/she will have to live with themselves. Anyone who does make up rumors about other people really has some SELF ESTEEM ISSUES and is trying to make himself/herself feel better. It’s just too immature and totally wrong. In fact, I had a friend who I thought I could trust, but he suddenly started becoming a jerk. He told everyone that he couldn’t trust me anymore, but I never did anything to him. He also said that I told everyone secrets about him, but I don’t even know what he was talking about!! I didn’t do anything to him, but he started telling people that I liked someone who he knows I DO NOT like. He also told everyone that I was very untrustworthy, but it’s quite the opposite. A couple months before, I had told him my msn password and he told me his. Just recently, he changed his password and went onto my msn account and deleted the contact of the person who he told everyone that I liked and one other related person. I’m pretty sure that he said a couple other things that I don’t know yet. After all that, he lied and said he didn’t do anything to me. I never did do anything, and after what he did to me, I didn’t do anything to fight back even though there are countless things about him I could tell everyone.
5. Is there someone in your life right now that you might need to forgive for something? No, but there is someone in my life now who made up many rumors about me that were TOTALLY not true even though I did nothing at all to those people. I will not forgive them because they are just jerks who need more attention. They have never said anything to me about it and have never apologized. I would forgive them if they said they were sorry and truely meantit, but I highly doubt that.
6. What does it feel like to forgive someone? Why do you think that is? I always feel good and happy when I forgive someone because I know it makes them feel better about what they did. But if the person doesn’t apologize for anything, then they don’t deserve to be forgiven and I don’t feel happy for them.

To anyone who makes up rumors:

You guys SERIOUSLY have issues and please, if you aren’t good enough for your own expectations, don’t take it out on other people, especially if they have done NOTHING wrong to you. Also, I know that ALL of you do that just to hurt someone so that you can feel better about your pathetic selves or so that other people will like you more than the person you made rumors about.

You people who do that are just mega screwed up. Get a life.

1. Do you like blogging or not?   Blogging is ok for me. I don’t REALLY like it, but I don’t dislike it either.
2. Is blogging for students like you an important thing to do?  Why?  Why not? I don’t think it is entirely important.   l But it does teach us many computer/internet skills, so it’s actually pretty good to have the opportunity for kids like me to to do this.
3. What would you like to blog about?   I really don’t know. I wouldn’t have a blog if we didn’t do it in computer class.
4. Why should we blog about your suggestions?   Because it would be more fun.
5. Do you like our blogging activities?  Why?  Why not?  They are kind of fun.
6. What should we do with our current blogging activities?   …..?
7. What else would you like to learn about in this quarter of computer applications?  (Suggest 5 things.)

• How to make a website
• How to make animations
• How to fix certain computer problems

1. How do you like our LINUX computers so far?   They are ok, but they get kind of sow when a bunch of people are using them at the same time.

1. If you were Maya’s best friend and had her best interest at heart, what would you suggest she do?   I would tell May to lay low and not evn speak of the issue because even though she did something really wrong, it would hurt her whole reputation and even her life as an adult. It would also go on her permanent record. I know that it would be bad to act like it never happened and do nothing about it, but she learned her lesson and that is good enough. If her principal asked her if she did do it, then I would convince her to turn herself in because it would be the right thing to do, it would only get worse if she lied, and she probably would have a lot of guilt if she lied.
2. If you were her parent, what do you think you would suggest she do?   If I was her parent, I would tell her not to tell her principal or anyone at school, because they would only make things worse. I would punish her big time and take her car away if she had one
3. What would she have to lose if she turned herself in?   If she turned herself in she would lose her dignity and disgrace her family. On the other hand, she would be known as a person to always tell the truth. She would have her self pride because she would know that even if she made a bad choice in the beggining, she made a good choice in the end.
4. What would she have to lose if she didn’t?   If she didn’t tell anyone and only lied about it, then she would be filled with guilt the rest of her teenage life and it would probably affect her grades and sports activities.
5. Have you or someone you know ever been in a similar situation to this? What happened and how did it turn out? Did you or that person feel regret or pride in the choice made?   I have been in situations where I was asked if I did something bad or not when the only way for the teacher/parent to know is if he/she asked me. I always admit that I did something wrong, because I can’t lie, especially about something like that and to a teacher/parent.
6. Do any of you feel Maya is over reacting to this situation? Why or why not?  I don’t think she is.

Today I finally figured out what I was doing on the GIMP!! I created a big weird picture thing with my name in Japanese on it. I already finished KTouch and I am getting bored with it. I can’t do a christmas tree on KTurtle, and I already did a smiley face, so I explored the GIMP and I found out how to use it. It isn’t very complicated no that I realise it. I sat in the same spot as yesterday again and the regular math class was really late AGAIN!!

Today i did level 5 on KTurtle and my top speed was 272!!! I sat in the same place I have been sitting in.

I tried The GIMP but it is really weird and it wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to do. Today, I will rest for a long time after school because, believe it or not, we have no math homework!! I also have to change the layout for my blog because it doesn’t show my links. After this I will comment people because I haven’t done that in a while.

Today the people in regular math and math review were late for class. We still have a substitute. I wasn’t able to do much in KTurtle or typing. We got to sit anywhere again, and of course I sat in the same place I have been sitting in since wednesday last week.

I am so glad that this week we have a four day weekend!!! But my dad will have to go in on parent-teacher conference day, so I will probably watch DVD’s on my dads computer for a couple of hours. I might finally persuade my dad into taking us to the restaurant Issin at the westen, because the food there is so good. We haven’t been there in a long time because my dad sais it’s too expensive to go to on a regular basis. I hope I will do a lot of fun things this weekend.

I didn’t know we were going to have a substitute today, so I was taking a rest on the bench and I thought that I would have a lot of time because Mr. Maiquez is always late. I didn’t expect it when our teacher came much earlier than usual. I was upset that I wasn’t able to have a rest.

Today before clas, I went to the lanai and got the extra shaved ice from the bakesale that they were going to throw away. It was very refreshing!! I am still on level 12 on KTouch and on KTurtle I just made a big mess of lines and colors because I was frustrated with the christmas tree. It was the first time I used colors on KTurtle. We got to sit wherever we wanted again today so I sat in the same place as yesterday!!

Today while we were typing, I was on level 11 when the power suddenly went out! I was so angry because my computer wouldn’t reboot after that!! It kept saying, “Disk boot failure, insert disc and press ‘Enter’”!! I reseted it a couple of times but it came to the same screen. I just went to the next computer and when the person next to me reseted my previous computer, it worked!!

After the computers turned on again, I went to Kturtle and I made a smiley face that was much better than Andrew’s. It had triangles for eyes and it was perfectly proportionate. I used a calculator to find the dimensions of my circle, then I made all my parts proportionate by finding that out.

Today, our sub let us sit wherever we wanted. I sat in the opposite corner from my regular spot because that is where I wanted to be in the first place. It is all squished in a corner.

Well, I finished level 12 today on KTouch and i helped the person next to me with his/her big circle for the smiley face on KTurtle. I tried making a Japanese symbol on KTurtle because I was done with my smiley face, but it was hard, so I stopped. I kept having to reset my computer while it was starting up because it said, “Disk boot failure, insert disc and press Enter” again.