Final Choice Novel blog

          The dystopian choice novel I chose was The Running Man by Stephen King, which was a book about a future society in 2025 where a new form of entertainment in the form of game shows has become very popular. The game shows involve people risking their life for large amounts of money. The main character who is named Ben Richards, is participating in a competition known as the running man, in which he is pursued by a group of professional killers called the hunters. While running from the hunters Ben Richards discovers that the government has been hiding the truth about increases in air pollution which has risen to extremely dangerous levels in recent years. This air pollution has caused a breakout of deadly cardio-pulmonary diseases, which they have labeled as “asthma” to the public. The way the story was resolved surprised me, because instead of Ben Richards unveiling the secrets the government hid from the public to the world, like the reader might predict, it ends with him learning that his wife and daughter were killed by a mob that believed that Ben Richards was a criminal and then hijacks a jet and crashes it into the game associations headquarters.
         I thought that this ending was slightly unsatisfactory because you never find out how or if the problem was resolved like you do in most novels. One thing that surprised me about this book is why Ben Richards chose to blame the games association about his family’s deaths instead of the mob that killed them. Indirectly, it was the games associations fault for spreading propaganda to the public telling them that Ben Richards was a criminal which caused the mobs anger towards Ben Richards. It confused me that after Ben Richards learned his family was dead the author described him as in a delirium but he still seemed capable of planning his hijacking of the plane, and also put thought into who’s fault he believed his families deaths were. I also thought it was odd that he was capable of piloting the plane after hijacking it, even though the book never mentioned that he had any ability to fly one.

Utopia blog

The Utopian society me and my group created for the Utopian society project was called the Gouda Ghetto. Our society was completely based around genetically modified plants that instead of growing wood or fruit grow cheese. The cheese is used for everything from eating to building and has allowed our society to rise above its neighbors to become a utopia. It is isolated from the rest of the world by the Swiss Sea and the montery jack mountains, and has grown a powerful military to defend itself with. Cheese has even become part of the society’s culture, and is used to define social classes.

One of the problems we faced while creating our society was if we would have other food sources outside of cheese. We eventually decided that we would also have vegetable, poultry, and cattle farms along with our farms for growing out modified cheese plants. This way we could widen our ability to produce food in one source failed, and increase our ability to trade with other societies. Another problem we faced was what other than cheese we would utilize as building materials. Eventually we decided we could mine and trade for various metals to strengthen our structures and build our military weapons out of. The final major problem we faced was how to keep the cheese that our buildings were made of from rotting. We decided that we would build tubes within the cheese buildings that contain Freon, and the climate of the region we live in stayed at a relatively low temperature all year round. We also used a sealant on the cheese that kept air from flowing in and out of it freely.

            My group and I also had focus questions about our military and food production. We decided to have a strong military that we would use only for the defense of our society. All of our citizens own and are trained to use weapons in case we are attacked by a neighboring country. We found that it was very easy to cover our second focus question about food production. Our society contains many farms that grow a variety of foods, primarily the modified cheese plants. We have an entire class in society devoted to working on farms, which make up the majority of our economy.

choice book

          For my choice book I read the Running Man by Stephen King. In the story, which takes place in the year 2025, a new form of entertainment has arisen that consists of game shows that people risk their lives in to win huge amounts of money. The main character Ben Richards has signed up for a game show known as the running man to win money to help his daughter who is fatally ill. The running man is a game show in which a person is on the run from an elite group who is trained to track the contestant down. Throughout the contest the contestant is portrayed as a criminal to the public to avoid people helping them. Throughout the book, Ben Richards discovers many secrets that the government and game association has kept secret from the public, such as skyrocketing rates of air pollution, and diseases that have resulted from them. The government continues to do nothing about the pollution and instead allows people to die from lung diseases to maintain their power.
          This reminds me of some parts of our media that discuss things like celebrities and sporting events instead of more important matters. It keeps people from questioning their government’s solutions to problems by distracting them with entertainment. In the book Ben Richards discovers the truth about the pollution problem when he meets Bradley Throckmorton, whose sister suffers from a lung disease caused by the pollution. Bradley has researched the pollution and managed to build a nose filter to protect people’s lungs from the pollution, but when he attempts to spread what he found through Ben Richards, it is suppressed by the games association.  Instead the games associations uses his attempt to spread Bradley’s findings to lower public opinion of him even further, which results in the lynching of Ben Richard’s family. At the end of the book, the games association claims to have nothing to do with his families deaths, but I personally think they did so something to intentionally cause their deaths, and even if they did not, they did cause it indirectly by releasing propaganda to the public to make Ben Richards look bad, which caused them to attack his family.

Vocabulary

Julius Caesar

In the play Julius Cesar there are many different references to leadership and the qualities of a leader. Characters like Cesar, Brutus, and Cassius are compared to show good and bad qualities of leaders and how they can lead to the leader’s downfall. Some qualities I noticed in Cesar are that, like they said in the play, he is ambitious which can be good or bad depending on the circumstances. If he is ambitious for his people it could be good because he would focus on improving life for his people, but if he is ambitious for himself he could try to gain more power for himself and improve life for himself and the people around him, which would make him a tyrant like Cassius and Brutus predicted. One good quality Cesar had was that he was very good at persuading large groups of people, which can help convince a reluctant group of an idea.

One other character, who displayed qualities of good and bad leaders in the play, was Cassius. One negative quality about him is that he was very manipulative, which helped him convince Brutus and the other members of the group that assassinated Cesar to help him. A manipulative leader can convince people to do things that they otherwise would not, without them realizing that they are doing anything. One positive leadership trait that Cassius has is that he is very loyal, especially to Brutus.

The last main character in the play that showed leadership characteristics was Brutus. Brutus’s best leadership trait in the play was his selflessness and sympathy, which in a leader, help the leader focus on the need of his people and not himself. One bad leadership trait Brutus possessed was that he was very trusting, especially of Cassius. This made him very easy to manipulate in to assassinating Cesar. He was especially vulnerable to Cassius, who was very good at persuading stubborn people.

Animal Farm Readers Notebook

When we read animal farm by Gorge Orwell in class, it was actually the second time I've read the book and I already knew it was supposed to be a metaphor for the rise of the Soviet Union, so I think I was able to focus on what the characters and events represented instead of trying to follow the story line. For example, the battle of cowshed in the book when Jones tried to retake the farm represented the Russian revolution when after the czars had been overthrown, the White Army, who wanted to replace autocratic government ruled by the czar, fought the Red Army, who wanted to implement communism instead. In this war the White Army was defeated by the Red Army quickly, similar to the book where Orwell wrote "And so within five minutes of their invasion they were in ignominious retreat by the same way as they had come, with a flock of geese hissing after them and pecking at their calves all the way." I noticed similarities like these in many characters, events ,and ideas some of which were Napoleon who represented Stalin, Snowball who represented Lenin who contested Stalin for leadership over soviet Russia, Old Major who represented Marxist, the man who first conceived of communism, and animalism which represented Marxism. There is a metaphor for almost every important political figure, social class, event, and idea or figure from Soviet Russia in animal farm.
          In the book one of the only major characters I did not understand what they were a metaphor for was Boxer. Through most of the book I thought he represented the working class of Soviet Russia, until when in the text Benjamin said,"Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler, Willingdon. Dealer in Hides and Bone-Meal. Kennels Supplied. Do you not understand what that means? They are taking Boxer to the knacker's!" Later after this quote the pigs convince the animals that Boxer was only going hospital, but to the readers it is obvious that he was not. What confuses me about this part of the book is that if Boxer represented an entire social class, how could Napoleon have sold him? The scenario makes sense in the book, but I don't understand how entire social class could be "sold". One possibility could be that Boxer represented a political figure that organized labor in Soviet Russia that was executed by Stalin. Another thing that this event in the book could be a metaphor for is the Russian work camps, called gulags, that many Russian citizens who were believed to be rebellious were sent to. I think my second possible solution makes the most sense, except for the fact that the citizens sent to the gulags were either rebellious or believed to be rebellious, and that doesn't fit Boxers catch phrase "Napoleon is always right" and overall pro-Napoleon beliefs.

Gun Safety should be part of schools curriculum

          In today's society there are many people who are unaware of how to use or handle a firearm safely. This lack of knowledge has caused fear and mystery around the concept of guns, and in a situation where these people are handling a firearm it could be a danger to them and the people around them. By teaching basic gun safety in school we could lower the danger of handling firearms incorrectly and immensely reduce the danger for untrained individuals and those around them. "Proponents and foes of gun control say they want gun education and avoidance programs taught in public schools from kindergarten through middle school or even high school. “ Says Claire Moore of ABC News. "Spurred by the series of school shootings in recent years, school districts and state legislatures across the country are pushing for gun education in the classroom." In Moore's article she writes about how, after several school shootings, school districts and legislators everywhere are pushing to make gun safety training part of school curriculums to help students understand guns and how to be safe around them. There are two different strategies to how to teach gun safety in school referenced in this article, one is a NRA program called Eddie Eagle that uses the slogan “Stop, don’t touch, leave the area, tell an adult” to encourage kids to avoid guns. The second program, called STAR or straight talk about risks, teaches kids about how to manage anger, resolve conflicts non-violently, and the consequences of handling a gun or using a gun to resolve a conflict. If either of the referenced programs were implemented in schools, they could teach students about basic gun safety. Then, if the student wishes to continue learning about firearm safety for a hobby like trap shooting, target shooting, or hunting they could continue learning about firearm safety in a DNR gun safety class or other similar programs. The programs could have a tremendous effect how students handle and think of guns, which would help make schools safer from gun violence by educating children about the reality of firearm safety.

Logical Fallacies

Studying fallacies has taught me that during a debate or argument, you have to make sure that neither you nor your opponent is using opinions or fallacies. Many people use fallacies so they can avoid having to have any knowledge on the topic of an argument, and still sound credible. They are often used in political debates, news stories, and even arguments between typical people. They make it much easier to convince an audience about an idea, since some fallacies can be as convincing as actual evidence when they are used in the correct situation. Even though logical fallacies are usually used to present false information, they can still be used correctly to convey true information. For example, the fallacy ignoring a common cause is a fallacy in which you assume that because one event happened right before another, the first caused the second event though a third event could have caused them both. This fallacy could still be used to present correct information, if the second event actually did cause the third, and the first event was unrelated. Almost every fallacy has a situation where it actually true, but still are most often false.

Fallacy video

Happieness and the American Dream

Happiness is one of the most commonly contemplated subjects in the world. Everyone wants to be happy, but there is no set way of achieving it. Some people try to attain it through adventure and achievements, like climbing a mountain or completing a bucket list. Other people try to buy things that will make them happiness, which is the origin of the phrase money cannot buy happiness. Both of these strategies can work, but rarely create permanent happiness, which raises the question, what can?

The idea of happiness is closely related to an idea that is labeled the American dream. The first publicized mention of this idea was in the declaration of independence which said that all people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I personally believe that what the authors of the declaration of independence meant by that was that every citizen of the United States could attempt to attain happiness in any way they see fit, even though it may not even be possible to fully attain it. In the United States we have the ability to gain what we need, and the opportunity to attain happiness.

Now back to my original question, what can provide permanent happiness? There are probably thousands of theories, each as likely as the last. In the Euphio Question by Kurt Vonnegut, he writes about one possible theory of attaining happiness through technology. Here is a passage from his short story, The gadget is, I think, what a lot of people vaguely foresaw as the crowning achievement of civilization: an electronic something-or-other, cheap, easily mass-produced, that can, at the flick of a switch, provide tranquility. In the Euphio Question Vonnegut also explains how perfect happiness, would necessarily create a utopia either as he says in this passage; The question is not whether euphio works. It does. The question is, rather, whether or not America is to enter a new and distressing phase of history where men no longer pursue happiness but buy it. I think what Vonnegut means by this is that since pursuing happiness is to a lot of people the meaning of life, what life would be without it.

One of the reasons I think perfect happiness is unachievable is in its name. In almost every single way imaginable, perfection cannot be fully attained. There is always some way to improve. You could make a more accurate measurement, run a lap faster, buy a better phone or gadget and you could still do better. As in Nathaniel Hawthornes, The Birthmark he writes, The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present. What I think Hawthornes meant by this was that attempted to achieve full perfection, when he had what was already very near perfection, and paid the price for it.