Brian Skerry reveals ocean's glory -- and horror | Video on TED.com
This is about a marine photographer who is trying to save the sea wiht his images. Very cool.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Curious incident of the Dog in the Nighttime response
In the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, the main character is used as a constant form of truth, because he does not have the capacity to lie, and is shown to dislike the colors yellow and brown, which represents the part of us humans that is superstitious, and the Black Days where he just doesn't talk is almost a representation of those who believe so firmly in their horoscope that they just stay home and lay on the couch since their horoscope is bad. This is used to show the ridiculousness of the subject, as an autistic boy is shown doing things eerily similar to certain things most people do that the author has a low opinion of.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Existential Answer
An essay response to the novel The Power and the Glory
The existential question: why do we exist? This question has puzzled the human race since the beginning of intelligent thought. Finally the human race has come up with it's own answers as to why each and every one of them exists. The novel The Power and the Glory uses characters to represent those various answers that like people devised.
Firstly, there is the jefe. The jefe is used to represent those who choose to live with large conviction towards what they do, and stand strong for their beliefs, never allowing anyone to shake their firmness in things they think are so right, believing that they exist to execute their plans for the world. In the novel, the jefe is an extreme socialist who believes all churches are centers of public delusion and therefore must be destroyed. He even is ready to kill innocent civilians who have nothing to do with the church for the simple information of whether the priest had been in the town or not. This is a true example of existing to execute.
In sharp contrast to the jefe, there is Padre Jose. Padre Jose is a disgusting coward who is to afraid to stand for anything but for his own greed. He represents those who think they live to indulge and never have to feel pain at all. This is just what he does during the entire course of the novel, refusing to even perform his priestly duties, serving as what the communist government can use as a living example for the cowardice of the church and the hypocrisy the priests exercise, banning wives while Padre Jose has one, banning indulgence while that is Padre Jose’s daily routine, banning greed while that is Padre Jose’s sole emotion. Padre Jose represents the coward in all of us.
Thirdly, there are the Lehrs. They represent those who simply ignore trouble and try to live without any conflicting ideas to their own. They are even described as “simply ignoring anything that conflicted with an ordinary German-American homestead”Pg.163. These are people who think they live to be constantly happy, and never argue, simply choosing to stand for nothing to prevent those who would stand for something in opposition from caring. This is a perfect exhibition of people that want nothing to do with arguing.
Finally there is the mestizo-- the prime example of living like an animal. Never giving half a care to the needs of others, the mestizo lives doing only what is beneficial to himself. He represents those who think they exist to “feel pleasure in any way they choose”. The mestizo doesn’t even care for the priest’s life if getting him killed would give him a good name with the authorities. He uses the lure of a dying man to bait the priest into being captured and killed by the government. This man knows no mercy nor kindness. Only what makes him feel the pleasure he so very much loves. The mestizo is the role model of the heartless.
All these people represent all the different answers to the greatest question humans can ask themselves. They all show various ways to live, and why one would choose that lifestyle. Some are bad and some are good, but all are what makes humans make the choices they do, and determine what kind of a person they really are.
An essay response to the novel The Power and the Glory
The existential question: why do we exist? This question has puzzled the human race since the beginning of intelligent thought. Finally the human race has come up with it's own answers as to why each and every one of them exists. The novel The Power and the Glory uses characters to represent those various answers that like people devised.
Firstly, there is the jefe. The jefe is used to represent those who choose to live with large conviction towards what they do, and stand strong for their beliefs, never allowing anyone to shake their firmness in things they think are so right, believing that they exist to execute their plans for the world. In the novel, the jefe is an extreme socialist who believes all churches are centers of public delusion and therefore must be destroyed. He even is ready to kill innocent civilians who have nothing to do with the church for the simple information of whether the priest had been in the town or not. This is a true example of existing to execute.
In sharp contrast to the jefe, there is Padre Jose. Padre Jose is a disgusting coward who is to afraid to stand for anything but for his own greed. He represents those who think they live to indulge and never have to feel pain at all. This is just what he does during the entire course of the novel, refusing to even perform his priestly duties, serving as what the communist government can use as a living example for the cowardice of the church and the hypocrisy the priests exercise, banning wives while Padre Jose has one, banning indulgence while that is Padre Jose’s daily routine, banning greed while that is Padre Jose’s sole emotion. Padre Jose represents the coward in all of us.
Thirdly, there are the Lehrs. They represent those who simply ignore trouble and try to live without any conflicting ideas to their own. They are even described as “simply ignoring anything that conflicted with an ordinary German-American homestead”Pg.163. These are people who think they live to be constantly happy, and never argue, simply choosing to stand for nothing to prevent those who would stand for something in opposition from caring. This is a perfect exhibition of people that want nothing to do with arguing.
Finally there is the mestizo-- the prime example of living like an animal. Never giving half a care to the needs of others, the mestizo lives doing only what is beneficial to himself. He represents those who think they exist to “feel pleasure in any way they choose”. The mestizo doesn’t even care for the priest’s life if getting him killed would give him a good name with the authorities. He uses the lure of a dying man to bait the priest into being captured and killed by the government. This man knows no mercy nor kindness. Only what makes him feel the pleasure he so very much loves. The mestizo is the role model of the heartless.
All these people represent all the different answers to the greatest question humans can ask themselves. They all show various ways to live, and why one would choose that lifestyle. Some are bad and some are good, but all are what makes humans make the choices they do, and determine what kind of a person they really are.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Forgiveness: The whiskey priest's salvation
Writing response to The Power and the Glory
In the jail scene in the novel The Power and the Glory the whiskey priest as he is called has been arrested and taken to jail for a crime of treason, that being the possession of religion, which is viewed as dangerous to the government’s total authority. As he is simply looking for peace in this 12 x 12 cell, he is repeatedly harassed for cigarettes and money by all manner of wretched scum, arrested for many different crimes. If the whiskey priest had been like them, he would have been as useless and corrupt as Padre Jose. But what saved him was that he found understanding and pity for them, and did not begrudge them for their selfishness. This is the whiskey priest’s saving grace. This is all of humanity’s saving grace. This is forgiveness.
In the jail scene in the novel The Power and the Glory the whiskey priest as he is called has been arrested and taken to jail for a crime of treason, that being the possession of religion, which is viewed as dangerous to the government’s total authority. As he is simply looking for peace in this 12 x 12 cell, he is repeatedly harassed for cigarettes and money by all manner of wretched scum, arrested for many different crimes. If the whiskey priest had been like them, he would have been as useless and corrupt as Padre Jose. But what saved him was that he found understanding and pity for them, and did not begrudge them for their selfishness. This is the whiskey priest’s saving grace. This is all of humanity’s saving grace. This is forgiveness.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Various Journal Entries
Clock- Tick, tock… Tick tock… time moves on oblivious of the crumbling universe around it as the clock ticks relentlessly in rhythm with the flow. Time, the eternal juggernaut, moves on no matter the torn state of the world around it, and even when all else ceases to exist, the mighty tank that is time still rolls forward, acknowledged solely by the eternal ticking of the clock.
Snow- The cold winter has devoured all my assets, as I am left with noting but a seal skin to keep me warm. The brutal, blistering wind howls like a merciless pack of wolves, tearing at my near exposed flesh and bringing the cold back with a vengeance. I crawl into my shallow snow cave where I await my oncoming death, the sweat of making it frozen to my frostbitten flesh. I am hungry, frozen, and dying, but the worst part of it all is that I am alone.
Snow- The cold winter has devoured all my assets, as I am left with noting but a seal skin to keep me warm. The brutal, blistering wind howls like a merciless pack of wolves, tearing at my near exposed flesh and bringing the cold back with a vengeance. I crawl into my shallow snow cave where I await my oncoming death, the sweat of making it frozen to my frostbitten flesh. I am hungry, frozen, and dying, but the worst part of it all is that I am alone.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Connection to Fahrenheit 451
The way this response connects to Fahrenheit 451 is that no one will try to touch a supertitan. Both Russia in my paper and the country in Fahrenheit 451 are superpowers, and no one will even attempt to fight with anything with that much power. That was one of the biggest factors which allowed the government in fahrenheit 451 to have so much control over its people, and over the enite world.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Fahrenheit 451 major response
Note: The first paragraph is the scenario
Russia has just launched its first bombing capable satellite into space, which can immediately becoming an imminent doom for nearly every other country, since as of yesterday at noon Russia gained the ability to annihilate any country of its choosing on a whim, and with no consequences since all other countries that interfered could be wiped off the map with more conventional or nuclear warheads falling like rain. This, however, is just the beginning of the issue, as no matter what happens to the satellite, it will still be a massive agent of destruction.
Firstly, if the satellite is to be left floating in orbit, Russia will have the power to do virtually anything of its choosing, as no one would be able to get in the way for longer than their country can survive a full scale bombing, as if they have all their military away, who will help the civilians? Even a peace pact with Russia will not stop them from using this imminent threat in the sky as a tool of extortion to get them anything they wish for. Leaving this agent of death and destruction in the sky is not feasible.
Although destroying the satellite may seem much better, how? If one were to disrupt its orbit, Earth’s gravity field would pull it into the atmosphere, and because of the satellite’s massive size it would not burn up in the atmosphere, and would hit ground or sea, both of which would be devastating.
If the satellite were to hit ground, a massive crater would form. To put the massive destruction into perspective, a grain of sand sized particle could create a crater roughly 2 feet in diameter, in other words, enough to crush a human’s skull into fragments. If a massive satellite such as that were to hit ground, even if it were halved in size, the result would be devastating. And if the payload somehow detonated the surrounding population for hundreds of miles around would suffer from severe radiation poisoning, leading them to grisly, cancerous deaths. Even without nuclear warheads, if the conventional warheads went off, the shockwaves could level houses and buildings for miles
By chance if the satellite landed in water, the result wouldn’t be much better at all. Instead of a crater, a tsunami. And again if the satellite’s payload went off, and it happened to have nuclear cargo aboard as the world suspects it does, a radioactive tsunami more than twice the size. Absolutely no better than land even if it only has conventional warheads aboard, .
Even if the satellite somehow was detonated in the air, the unlucky country it was above, whether it was blown up in orbit or not, would have a rain of massive chunks of metal upon it, as plates of metal the size of houses ravage the city below. Assuming the worst, if it does have nukes, instead of metal plates, radioactive fallout. Obviously not an option.
What to do with this behemoth satellite is as of yet unknown. Nearly all options are unfeasible, and a solution may only be found by forcing Russia to unload it of warheads, which will turn out to be much easier said than done.
Russia has just launched its first bombing capable satellite into space, which can immediately becoming an imminent doom for nearly every other country, since as of yesterday at noon Russia gained the ability to annihilate any country of its choosing on a whim, and with no consequences since all other countries that interfered could be wiped off the map with more conventional or nuclear warheads falling like rain. This, however, is just the beginning of the issue, as no matter what happens to the satellite, it will still be a massive agent of destruction.
Firstly, if the satellite is to be left floating in orbit, Russia will have the power to do virtually anything of its choosing, as no one would be able to get in the way for longer than their country can survive a full scale bombing, as if they have all their military away, who will help the civilians? Even a peace pact with Russia will not stop them from using this imminent threat in the sky as a tool of extortion to get them anything they wish for. Leaving this agent of death and destruction in the sky is not feasible.
Although destroying the satellite may seem much better, how? If one were to disrupt its orbit, Earth’s gravity field would pull it into the atmosphere, and because of the satellite’s massive size it would not burn up in the atmosphere, and would hit ground or sea, both of which would be devastating.
If the satellite were to hit ground, a massive crater would form. To put the massive destruction into perspective, a grain of sand sized particle could create a crater roughly 2 feet in diameter, in other words, enough to crush a human’s skull into fragments. If a massive satellite such as that were to hit ground, even if it were halved in size, the result would be devastating. And if the payload somehow detonated the surrounding population for hundreds of miles around would suffer from severe radiation poisoning, leading them to grisly, cancerous deaths. Even without nuclear warheads, if the conventional warheads went off, the shockwaves could level houses and buildings for miles
By chance if the satellite landed in water, the result wouldn’t be much better at all. Instead of a crater, a tsunami. And again if the satellite’s payload went off, and it happened to have nuclear cargo aboard as the world suspects it does, a radioactive tsunami more than twice the size. Absolutely no better than land even if it only has conventional warheads aboard, .
Even if the satellite somehow was detonated in the air, the unlucky country it was above, whether it was blown up in orbit or not, would have a rain of massive chunks of metal upon it, as plates of metal the size of houses ravage the city below. Assuming the worst, if it does have nukes, instead of metal plates, radioactive fallout. Obviously not an option.
What to do with this behemoth satellite is as of yet unknown. Nearly all options are unfeasible, and a solution may only be found by forcing Russia to unload it of warheads, which will turn out to be much easier said than done.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Fahrenheit 451 response
Montag's world is a parallel of our own yet it is such a hellish place full of greed and control. Ray Bradbury is clearly showing showing our world what to fear becoming, which so befits the story's ironic mode, especially in the character Captain Beatty. He is a low-lived, maniacal pyromaniac who is commonly found hustling people on the streets in our world, and is now in a position of honor and respect and most of all authority. His words are meant to deceive and ensnare, and his actions to reinforce undebated belief in thoughtless lives, which is very imminent as he explains how powerful fire and it's cleansing qualities are when he says “Burn everything then burn the ashes. Fire is bright and fire is clean.” Fire is a symbol of purity as he points to, however using the pure to burn one's own free will down to a frame weaker than toothpicks and turn one into yet another of the government's servants is truly showing us not to ever let happen. Bradbury is using this character to show the world what not to follow, and that is the corrosive pressure of another's will upon one's own will.
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