Jon's Journal

The Earth's natural resources are quickly being depleted because of carelessness and lack of responsibility.  As a world community, we must conserve, or these resources will become nonexistent.   Actions cannot be too drastic, though, for if modern people such as we were to stop using our natural resources,  just for the sake of conserving them, we would take a large step backward in evolution, finding ourselves back in the Stone Age.  To ensure a prosperous future, we must conserve our natural resources without limiting our way of life.  This can be accomplished by exploring new forms of transportation and electrical generation.

Most transportation now in use requires the use of fossil fuels, important resources that require conservation.  Since all of them are essential to our society, we must be careful not to limit it.  The rail system is an important part of our transit system, one that uses mass quantities of fossil fuels.  Rapid rail transit systems are now being tested that could cut both the fuel consumption and the cost of long range rail transport.  Electric and natural gas powered cars are becoming increasingly popular.  Natural gas is easily come by and has an economical low cost.  It also burns clean, producing no environmentally harmful byproducts.  By taking advantage of the new ways of producing electricity discussed further on, electrically powered cars should not have any trouble finding a power source.  They, too, do not emit any harmful byproducts into the environment.

Electrical generation is and will be important to a prosperous society.  Unfortunately, some electrical generation plants use valuable resources and pollute the environment.  New sources of electrical generation are becoming available, though.  Fusion energy is the most promising, though not yet available.  Fusion energy uses hydrogen for fuel, an element found almost everywhere on the planet.  As of this moment, the energy yield is low, but it will, when fully operational, produce enough energy to supply an area the size of a small state.  Another new technology, burning a mixture of coal and ordinary fire wood, is a promising source of energy available today.  The United States contains a plentiful supply of coal, more than any other fossil fuel.  Because it emits sulfur into the atmosphere, which causes acid rain, coal plants need to be equipped with scrubbers, costly filters that remove the sulfur.  When wood is burned with coal, the sulfur emissions are halved.  The trees used for this process also would contribute to the environment during their growth.

Therefore, we can retain a prosperous society while living together with the environment.  Conserving will not solve all the problems in the world, but it may help some of them.  Our society has reached a point where it must conserve everything it has for the future.  The sooner we start, the more we will have saved.

The Honorable Senator Lautenberg,

I am a student from Great Meadows, NJ, in Warren County.  I have written to you concerning a developing problem in our community.  Our community's economic base has been tourism from Mountain Lake since our town's founding.  It is a major center of socialization and is home to roughly fifty percent of our communities population.  The problem is that Mountain Lake is getting dirty, and no one wants to swim or fish in a dirty lake.  I was told at a recent town council meeting that we, the town, have no way of cleaning the lake ourselves.  Our only hope was the Army Corps of Engineers.  It was suggested that you, sir, would be able to assist us in that matter. 

We are a happy community, and we like to think a clean one.  The filthiness of the lake is becoming more and more an embarrassment.  I ask you to help us to restore our lake to what it once was.

Audubon was born in Haiti in 1785.  His father was a French Navy officer.  As a young child, he was sent back to France.  He spent most of his time drawing birds.  As a teen-ager, Audubon was sent to art school and a Navy training school; he didn't like either.  He moved again to Pennsylvania, which then (1803) was still wilderness.  He loved this area and spent the rest of his life in the Pennsylvania wilderness.

Though it may seem uncharacteristic, Audubon killed hundreds of birds.  Since photography was so crude in the early 19th century, he used dead birds held in position by wire as models.  In 1838, after 20 years of work, he completed "Birds of America," a collection of 435 life-size paintings of birds in action.  After these experiences with the birds of the world, Audubon dedicated the rest of his life to preserving birds and their habitats.  His work culminated in the National Audubon Society.

Jon Parise
April 18, 1994
Junior Great Books
"The White Circle"

    "The White Circle," by John Bell Clayton, is the story of Tucker and how he almost kills Anvil.  Anvil irritates Tucker to the extent where murder becomes an option.  Tucker makes his attempt on Anvil's life but fails.  Although Anvil seems a little rough around the edges, Tucker is clearly the evil character in this story.
    Tucker's family is rich, and he uses the wealth as a screen to hide behind.  "Your old man owns everything in sight," Anvil states.  Early in the story his wealth  can be seen in the fine horses and vast acreage of their plantation.  One can tell Tucker hides behind his wealth when Anvil calls him a, "stuck-up little priss." 
    Anvil is the one of the two with any values.  Even though he acts tough and lives a hard life, he is still an ethical person.  He says, "You can have your stinkin' old apples," to Tucker because he knows Tucker made a stupid decision.  From that point on, Anvil wants no part of Tucker's friendship.  He dislikes anyone who is stuck-up and thinks they are better because of what they have.
    Tucker himself hates Anvil, but he hates him for all the wrong reasons.  Tucker "planned...his extinction" time and time again because Anvil simply annoyed him.  Anvil had and would never do anything as bad as what Tucker planned to do to him.  Tucker hated Anvil because he was dirty and had a foul mouth, causes enough to avoid the person but not to kill him.
    It easy to see that Tucker's marbles aren't all in his possession.  He could have just avoided Anvil or played a mean trick on him, but he didn't have to murder him.  The vast majority of murderers are insane, and Tucker belongs to that majority.  Anvil sums up Tucker's deranged plot best when he says, "You'd [kill me] for a few dried-up little apples."  To some an apple can be a beautiful thing, but does it come even remotely close to human life?
    Nearly every person alive would say a murderer is a bad person.  Tucker is clearly a murderer and thus the stories evil character.  Tucker planned the murder.  "I was lying there with a towering, homicidal detestation, planning to kill Anvil," Tucker said.  Are those the words of the story's protagonist?  The murder was premeditated.  Tucker admits it himself.  Premeditated murder is the worst possible crime a person is humanly possible of committing.  Tucker can't be anything other than the evil character.
    John Bell Clayton's "The White Circle" is about Anvil and Tucker's one-on-one battle than goes a little too far.  Looks can be deceiving.  Although Anvil looks like the rotten, no-good scoundrel of the story, Tucker is the most suitable for the role.

Jon Parise
May 10, 1995

    To begin, I am very happy and content with my name, and I've never really thought about changing it.  The only thing that becomes a bother is that most people spell it with the h, even when I spell it out for them.
    Now on to the story of how my name came to be.  To make things clear, my first name is Jon and my middle name is Christopher.  Now, when my maternal grandmother was pregnant with her first child, who was my mother, she had chosen the name Christopher Jon Smith, had she been a boy.  Instead, because she was a girl,she became Kristin Ann Smith.  The Ann just sounder good.
    A few years later, my grandmother was going to have another child.  She again planned to name the baby, if it was a boy, Christopher Jon Smith.  Well, upon further thought, it became obvious that the two children, Kristin and Christopher, would both answer to the name Kris (Chris).  She decided to compromise and name the child, if it were a boy, Jon Christopher.  Well, it turned out my aunt was born, and she was named Kim Marie Smith.  She also was my grandmother's last child.
    Years passed by, and then my mother was married.  When she was pregnant with her first child, she, like her mother before he, decided that, if the child were a boy, she would name him Jon Christopher.  Well, third times the charm, and I was born.  I was christened Jon Christopher Parise, and that's who I've been ever since.
    The name Jon was chosen mainly because my grandmother and the rest of her family liked it.  Not many guys had that name, and she wanted to be a little rebellious.  They also liked that Scandinavian spelling, being she was Polish and my grandfather was Norwegian.  The Christopher was my mother's paternal grandmother's maiden name.  Thus, I have ties to many of my ancestors who I'l unfortunately never know.