Week 5: Top Links

Here are some links to interesting blogs or posts I came across while browsing our class blogs:

Cat Lover's blog has pictures of her brother's drawings and discusses how his art represents him as a person. Check it out!

Ric and the Boys talks about a cello duo group that plays popular songs with their cello's. There wasn't a link directly to youtube, but the way they described the music made me want to go home and look them up.

I found Yours Truly's post about the book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? to be really humorous. She even made her own list about what she requires of her future roommate.

Kidnapping the Lorax Part 2

This week I read more of Kidnapping the Lorax, a story about a group of extreme environmentalists that kidnap the Secretary of the Interior in order to reeducate her on the value of protecting the environment (see earlier post for more background info). Thus far, I have been enjoying the novel because it contains a surprising mix of both humor and sincerity. Toward the middle of the novel though, the plot started to dull a bit to me. After all, how exciting can the story of four people frolicking in the middle of a deserted forest be? However, there was one conversation the characters had while sitting around the campfire that caught my attention.

One of the characters, Walden, is a typical troublemaker. He likes to stir emotion in people, make others angry, and start arguments. One night, for no particular reason other than to start a dispute, he decides it would be a good idea to criticize the other characters’ value in religion, arguing that religion is one of the primary reasons for environmental degradation. It sounds a bit far fetched at first, but listen to his argument:

“It’s religion that’s gotten the planet into this environmental crisis. ‘Multiply and have dominion over the earth’ -  that’s exactly the problem. There are too many people – which are the cause of pollution, over-use of resources, you-name-it – and they think they can rule the earth.”

An interesting argument, no? Whether you agree with him or not, its definitely food for thought. The fact that the world is too overpopulated is definitely one of the main reasons for environmental destruction. To support the seven billion people on earth, we need to cut down a lot of trees, over pump a lot of underground water sources, and slaughter a lot of animals to feed everyone. The question is though, is religion one of the driving forces of human stewardship of the land?

The Secretary of the Interior disagrees. She even counters that Walden’s set of idealistic tree-hugging values is a religion in itself. He claims that he “believes in planet earth, the mother almighty.” Does he worship planet earth? His commitment to it has encouraged him to break the law and lead a kidnapping.  He is willing to die in the wilderness in order to prove his point that nature is worth protecting.

In fact, his “religion” is based off of fear. While some people may practice a religion because of their fear of hell, he respects the land because of an accident that happened when he was a child. When he and his brother were fooling around, trying to push an enormous boulder off a cliff, the boulder fell on the brother, crushing him and killing him instantly. This accident left an impression on Walden – that if you mess with mother nature, there will be consequences. Is it possible to go so far to say that his adoration for nature is based upon fear of retribution? This is one of the many parallels drawn between religion and extreme environmentalism in the novel. Though I personally don’t quite agree with either of the arguments, the evidence they use to support their arguments is quite fascinating.

Short List 1

Next week we have to write an article analyzing something on the internet. Vague, huh? Well, here are a few topic options I've been thinking about:


1) The Hunger Games Trailer. We are faced with the age old question- will the movie be as good as the book? I thoroughly enjoyed the first book, which I blogged about a few weeks ago, so I have high hopes for the movie coming out in March. The trailer provides a sneak peek at what the movie will be like. From how the actors portray the characters, to how the sets do justice to the post-apocalyptic setting, there's plenty to analyze here.


2) A post on  theburninghouse.com. On this site, people take pictures of all the things they would take with them if they were escaping a burning house. While most people photograph material possessions like their ipad or their laptop, one particular post caught my eye, where all that's photographed is a woman with a teddy bear. Normally we would envision a child connected with a teddy bear, but the sight of a forty year old woman clinging to a stuffed animal like a scared child made me think long and hard.


3) The Spongebob Squarepants theme song. It sounds like complete nonsense, but there's something about this show that's kept it on for so many years. Although the show is aired on Nickolodeon and is geared toward children, why does my fifty year old aunt watch it? Is there something about the show that actually appeals to older audiences as well? I came home from school the other day to catch my father taking a nap in the living room, serenaded by none other than the nasal, high pitched sound of Spongebob singing a song about feeding his pet snail. Just what is it about this show that's kept in on the air for so long?

Everyone else's thoughts

Upon viewing some of my fellow students' blogs, I discovered a couple really stood out to me. I have to say, it was really interesting seeing the innermost thoughts of other people. Perhaps because everyone's blogs are anonymous, people are more willing to be outspoken and deep in what they say. Compared to the stoic silence of the classroom, the creative posts of the blogs are quite enjoyable.

First, Conquering One Page At A Time had a really aesthetically pleasing site. As soon as the link opened, I turned to the person next to me and said "Oh, look at that. Isn't it pretty?" In a world full of millions of webpages, I suppose its important to stand out a bit.

http://philippicsandcompliments.blogspot.com/

I also really enjoyed Arabella Cruz' post about the opening scene of Dead Poets Society. Though I thought I was being extremely attentive when I was watching, some details went completely over my head, and this post highlighted some things I had never thought about.

http://arabella-cruz.blogspot.com/

Kidnapping the Lorax

After buying an ereader, I was idly searching the online bookstore for nothing in particular, when I had the miraculous idea of searching for Dr. Seuss books. I don’t know why. Perhaps I was feeling sentimental at the time and had a deep desire to revisit the literature of my youth. Regardless, when I searched for Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, I could not find the book. Instead, a novel titled Kidnapping the Lorax came up on my monitor, and I decided to click on the colorful picture of the cover with sunlight streaming through the leaves of trees onto an illuminated green sword fern. What can I say? I’m a sucker for foliage.

The novel centers around Lacey, the US Secretary of the Interior, who is supporting the deforestation of an old growth forest. To stop the deforestation from occurring, three extreme environmentalists kidnap her and hold her hostage in a campground located in the forest destined to be cut down in an attempt to reeducate her on the importance of nature. Lacey’s first thought upon being kidnapped is “Good God, no! These people are environmentalists!” Its true that her reaction represents what most people probably envision when they imagine dedicated environmentalists- tree hugging hippies that wear green every day and carry recycle bins everywhere they go. Nevertheless, she is forced under circumstances to live with these people for months as she is required to learn survival tasks such as pitching a tent and learning what plants have medicinal purposes.

Lacey’s modern opinions of progress and the kidnapper’s old fashioned idealism clash in a way that is both humorous and serious. Though I laughed out loud quite a few times when reading the characters’ banter over silly things such as the flavor of their organic toothpaste, their more important arguments unearth real issues in the way society treats the environment. Is it immoral to cut down a forest that’s been thriving and teeming with life for hundreds of years for economic gain? I am anxious to read on and discover what impact the Secretary’s time in the forest will have on her plan to destroy the environment.

Dead Poets Society

From the lack of music to the stoic expressions of the students, the uninspiring lackluster school ceremony establishes a bored mood to the Welton preparatory school. When the headmaster proclaims the four values of the school as being "tradition, honor, discipline, and excellence," he connotes that the school's goal is to shape the students' minds and behavior into a specific, predetermined mold. In past years, the school has been successful, because over seventy-five percent of the students moved on to ivy league schools after graduation. The question is though, at what costs? In the opening school ceremony, no individuality or creativity emerged from the students. The behavior and actions of the students later in the movie are likely to be influenced by the school's overbearing strictness.

The Hunger Games

Last week I concluded reading The Hunger Games series with reading the final pages of Mockingjay. After reading the first two books in the series, I had extremely high hopes for the third. The books are filled with memorable characters, action-packed plot, and powerful themes representing the hypocrisy and faults of the world’s post-apocalyptic society. However, after reading Mockingjay, I must admit that I was disappointed. Perhaps I’m just too much of a sap that wants to see a happy ending in everything. The novel was violent, bloody and dark, and after growing to love the characters in the first two novels, it was almost painful to read about some of their demises. In a way though, perchance this is what also made the novel good. The fact that the more fierce and aggressive sections of the novel were able to bring forth emotions in me such as regret, sorrow, and grief over the downfall of the characters means that I connected with the book.

The main plot of The Hunger Games centers around teenager Katniss Everdeen, who is forced to take part in the Hunger Games, a contest forced upon society by the overbearing, evil Capitol of the nation Panem. In the games, twenty four tributes from across Panem fight to the death in a game of survival, where the winner receives the privilege of escaping the game arena with their life. The novel is continuously commentating on the barbarism of not only the government of the society that creates the games, but also of the people who watch the games on their television. These moderate people may think the games are cruel or unjust, but they do nothing to act upon it. From this motif of a lack of action against oppressors in the society of this novel, parallels can be drawn to faults in real society. Many instances in history reveal a lack of caring from the average person who is too afraid to take a stand against wrongdoing. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr. in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”,  “shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” Like how white moderates stood by in the twentieth century and allowed African Americans to be treated cruelly, the people of Panem are refusing to defy the hunger games and demand the right to life the teenagers taking part in the games should have. Author Suzanne Collins is using the novel to comment on how immoral it is for our timid society to stand on the sidelines of injustice and allow evil to seize the lives of others as long as it does not effect us.

Duo Close Readings: Interior Design

Dan Martensen and Shannan Click's upstate New York farmhouse

Criteria: color, structure, furniture, decoration, personality


Observations:
     furniture is cluttered
     rustic
     quaint
    wood paneling/natural
     picturesque
     green/plants
     playful (ping pong table)
     bright/light (open windows)
     eclectic
     wide open space
     emphasis on outdoors
     expressive through art
     old fashioned


Claim: The design of the house fuses together old fashioned structure, modern art, and nature to create a serene living space.

Reading History

           Though I adore reading now, I used to cringe at the thought of opening a book. Sadly, my entire history of reading outside of school did not begin until about a year ago when my mother bought me a book for Christmas. As I ripped open the wrapping paper on Christmas morning only to discover the boredom of just another book I was never going to read, my first thought was, “does my mother even know me?” I mean, from the perspective of a teenage girl who had probably never read more than ten books for fun in the entire fifteen years of life, I was rather confused as to what my mother’s motives were.

            Eventually though, after I ate a few candy canes and built some snowmen, I took a closer look at the book. It was Elixir by Hilary Duff. Yes, I know, Hilary Duff. Though it was pretty much guaranteed to be a superficial, predictable, chick-lit novel, I figured, why not? So I picked up the book one night and started to read. Needless to say, I went to sleep at four in the morning that night. I was so drawn to the characters and the plot that I refused to rest until I knew what happened on the very last page of that book.

            Once I was finished with it, I started to think, “Wow, what if there are other good books out there?” I cannot express how ridiculous this sounds to me now. Of course there are good books out there! It only took me about five minutes of searching through some books I found in our basement (and I swear there were cobwebs on them) to discover more books that looked promising. Ever since then, I’ve always had a book in hand. I mostly read fantasy, though every now and then I like to pick up a chick-lit book that reminds me of the first really enjoyable book I received that fateful Christmas morning.