What is art?

This video is from Pointe DVD, and it's the Snow Pas de Deux and the Dance of the Snowflakes.  Ballet is one of the most true art forms to me.  I've never been so passionate about anything as I am about ballet.  I can't count the times I've seen the Nutcracker, and I can hum the musi< Nothing can replace the way I feel when I watch the beautiful dancer make her way across the stage, looking ethereal and weightless.  And when I'm out there on the stage and all eyes are on me, I'm no longer Mara.  I'm as ethereal and beautiful and weightless as all the other dancers, the audience can't even guess the grueling hours I've spent in rehearsal or that my big toe is bleeding or that I can already feel a blister coming on.

Ballet is so amazing because it's one of the most accurate ways to portray emotion.  The love I see in a pas de deux is stronger than I can see in some real life couples.  It also always evokes emotion.  I admit, I've cried at a ballet or two.  Either because the storyline is so heartbreaking, or the dance is so lovely.

Point(e) is, ballet is art.  Plain and simple.  And make sure to watch the video...it's awesome!

Troy Davis Article Questions

1. The main players in this story are Troy Davis (obviously), Marc McPhail, and Larry Young.

2. When Davis was arrested, nine witnesses who were also policemen testified against him, saying they saw him kill McPhail. Later, seven of the nine witnesses recanted their testimonies against him, saying they were coerced into testifying against him by "police strongarm tactics". But no local or state courts will rehear the case, and now the Supreme Court is deciding whether to rehear the case, and if they don't, Davis will likely be executed.

3. The Burger King parking lot, homeless people around, most likely with sleepin bags. A jail cell, a lethal injection room.

4. He is still incarcerated because no one, besides maybe the Supreme Court, will rehear his case and he is supposed to be executed soon.

5. This presents the argument that innocent people can be sentenced to death, and nothing is done about it.

Response to "What is a Blog?"

1. The main thing that struck me about this article was that it was really technical and really boring, with lots of language I didn't understand. It struck me because the Internet is something I've always seen as being very user friendly, so before I started to read the article, I expected to completely understand it, but as I read it I realized I only understood very little of the article. I thought that something that would explain what blogs are would be interesting, but I lost interest very early on in the article.

2. According to Jarrett, a blog is a "personally published document on the wed, with attribution and date, collected in a single place, generally published with a static structure to facilitate incoming links from other sourced, and updated with some regularity and frequency from every few days to several times daily."

3. Blogs are different from a website in that they are subjective and let the readers make up their own minds.

4. Blogging gives empowerment to people by letting them say whatever they want, and saying it in a public place, rather than in a private place, and therefore making sure other people can see and read it.

5. It is significant that your work is collected over time in a blog, so that readers can see how your opinion changes or stays the same over time. It also gives latecomers to the blog a chance to try to catch up, and it also gives your blog a voice.

6. Blogging can connect people that have similar interests, and help them to form friendships with each other.