Banning--Lit blog for 4/23

For my part in our presentation I did banning of commercials. One I found that was banned was for a Mercedes. A blond is in a library and goes up to the front desk and asks for a burger, fries, and a milkshake. The librarian says this is a library. The blond looks around at everyone around her....then in a whisper says can I have a burger, fries, and a milkshake. Now I think it's obvious this commercial was banned because some blonds found it offensive. Some people just seem to blow things out of proportion. The commercial was a joke and meant to be funny. Some people just can't take a joke I guess because it was banned. To me, people are always going to have different ideas and different opinions. We're never going to all agree on something, but that doesn't mean we just go and ban everything like they did with books in Fahrenheit 451. I think people need to always be open to new and different ideas. It helps us all to learn and grow at people and as a society.

Book burning--Lit Blog for 4/16

Today we talked about if we value books or not in today's world. Could it ever come to us forgetting about books and not caring...I'd hope not. I think enough people in this world love to still read and value what they're reading. We need books to learn new ideas and different ones. They give us different perspectives on things. The books we read in this class got me to thinking about things that I never really thought about before. I know I love to read especially over the summer when I have more free time. We may think now that people don't really care about reading but I think if they were going to make all books illegal you'd see much opposition. Its pretty amazing the amount of books people want band from certain places like schools. Like the one dictionary we talked about in class being band was just totally ridiculous and people really need to just calm down. The people who want the books band like on the list we got in class drive me crazy and to me their reasons seem stupid.

Fahrenheit 451

I really enjoyed reading this book as well. After Montag meets Clarisse it really gets him to thinking about his life asking himself, am I really happy? Do I love my wife? Turns out the answer is no. He's not happy and he doesn't even know his wife anymore. Neither can remember where they even met. Montag feels like he's living with a stranger. Millie does not appear to love Montag either. She just looks out for herself. She seems pretty dumb too if the reason she overdosed was because she kept forgetting she was taking pills. It seems so weird too that those men just come in suck out what inside her then refill her with new blood. Its creepy. Another aspect I found interesting is that this was written in the 50's and there are similarities to technology today. The walls for example where Millie talked to her family are similar to tv's or skype. They are like the huge flat screens people have today and people are addicted to watching tv today like Millie was to the walls and the family. The shells Millie wore in her ears are like ipods and the thing Montag wore in his ear to talk to his friend is like bluetooths. I thought that was rather interesting.

The Ending to A Clockwork Orange

I thought the ending of the book was weird. Alex was locked in an apartment and someone next door turned the music real loud that tortured him because it reminded him of his therapy. I think the guys who said they helped him wanted to prove their point that the therapy was wrong and his life was ruined. It helped their case when Alex jumped out the window because they could blame his therapy and having no choice on why he did it. After he gets out of the hospital his parents invite him to come back to live with them and Alex finds another group of boys to hang out with like Pete, Georgie, and Dim were in the beginning. I'm not surprised he went back to this lifestyle because I never thought he really changed. He was forced into those choices and he was never really a good person. I thought it was weird how he ran into Pete and his wife and all of a sudden he wanted to find a woman to marry and have kids with. It seemed like such a drastic change and just didn't seem logical to me. Alex was just so amazed at how grown up Pete looked yet Pete was still so young. It just seemed like Alex's violence was a stage that he had grown out of and now he wanted to be a mature adult. It all just seemed odd to me.

A Clockwork Orange--Lit blog for 3/19

Before reading this book, I had already seen a portion of the movie version. I had an idea of what it was about, so I think that helped me understand it better from the beginning. The language is hard to understand at first, but as you read you catch on to what words mean. This isn't the type of book I pick up to read for pleasure, but it wasn't a bad read. It is shocking and horrific the first time you find out what Alex and his friends are doing to the people of the city. The author makes it seem like the youth run the city at night and even the later in the book the police are somewhat corrupt. I do not agree with the therapy they imposed upon him. I guess if someone agrees then maybe it would be ok, but he had no idea what he was getting himself into. One of the value statements we talked about in class said something like...It is wrong to take away a person's choice. I totally agree with this. If we do not have the option to chose, we lose our freedom...something this country stands for. We have fought wars and still do for freedom. How could you possibly agree to have choice taken away? If your choice it taken away, that means someone else is making them for you. You are being controlled by someone else. In the case of an ordinary person, this would just never seem right. When it comes to criminals, they lose some of their right to choose and some of their freedoms. It is the consequence of their actions, but we do not totally take their option to chosoe away. They are still human beings. In the book, Alex is not given the option after the therapy to choose evil. He's not really reformed...he is just being forced to be good. If he had the choice he might have chosen evil and ended back in jail where he belonged because we know he still had the thoughts of evil in his head.

Feed--Lit blog for 2/19

To be honest, at first I didn't think I would like Feed. I've read books like this before and didn't like them, but since this one is newer I think that helped. In the end, I really liked it. Some of the language is different, but its easy to catch onto quick. As you read further and further into the book you begin to realize just how much the feed runs the lives of the people. When the feed had to be shut down after the hacker touched Titus and some of his friends they had no idea what to do without it. It was rather pathetic actually, but most of them were born with it so they knew nothing else. Violet is the one who introduces to Titus what its like without the feed and how to fight it. It is sad though that the world had become what it had in the book. The people were physically falling apart, the feed ran parts of the body, and if there was a problem, like Violet had, the corporations decided if you were worth saving. The world they lived in was pretty insane. The world itself and the environment was falling apart as well. It sounded like hell to me. The world they lived in would be horrible. Having my life run by a corporation, ads coming into my head all the time, and basically having no freedom would be the worst life ever. The weird part is, these people are so brainwashed they don't realize whats happening. They just take it because thats what the feed says; everything is alright. I liked reading it, but it just makes you want to tell these people they're stupid...don't they see whats happening? How could you not? It gave me a new perspective on things.

Dr. Bauerlein--Lit blog for 2/12

First off the miss USA pageant girl was a poor example to show our generation is dumb. For one, it was one bad answer and coming from one person. I bet everyone else in the class would have answered it better and correctly so one person screwing it up doesn't make our whole generation dumb. The Jay Leno segment also doesn't mean anything. I'm sure some people they found might have answered them right, but would they air those ones. No, because they're doing it for laughs. The questions were also geared mostly toward literature. Dr. Bauerlein claims that some technology is making us dumb, mindless, and lazy. He said some people didn't know who our allies were in WWII but what does technology have to do with that. People in my high school who didn't know that and did poorly on standardized tests were the ones doing drugs, drinking all the time, and who just didn't care about school. There were people like that in his generation too. Technology had nothing to do with it. Its his generation teaching us so there is the problem. He also focuses on one area of study, like we said in class. I bet if we asked him a psych question or a CJ question he wouldn't know it...so I guess he's dumb too.