Fahrenheit 451

The first couple of chapters of Fahrenheit 451 introduce us to the books protagonist, Guy Montag. Guy is a special type of fireman whose job is to burn books. He enjoys his job greatly and wears the number 451 on his helmet. 451 is the temperature at which paper starts to burn. He also wears a salamander on his arm and a phoenix disc on his chest. One day, on his way home from work he meets his neighbor, Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse says she is crazy and says that firemen used to put out fires instead of create them. She tells Guy that she comes from a strange family and does weird things, like read and walk places. Guy is attracted toward her, but she makes him feel nervous. Calrisse's unorthodox views and incredible power of identification intrigue Guy. The chapter ends with Clarisse asking Guy if he is happy, and Guy leaving to think about the troubling question and his new neighbor.

“Christianity without tears – that’s what soma is.” – Mustapha Mond

Mond, Resident Controller for Western Europe, and one of only ten World Controllers is introduced in the third chapter as a very important character.

The middle of the book tells the story of how the World State came to begin.

Mond tells the reader how life was like, in regards to reproduction control, child-rearing, and social relations. Mond makes an analogy of emotion and desire to water under pressure in a pipe. One big hole will make a big stream while many small holes will create several calm streams. Mond says that emotions that come from family relationships, sex, and delayed satisfaction of desire go against the World State's idea of stability. Mond says without stability, civilization cannot exist. Mond also says that before the creation of the World State, instability was caused by strong emotions. These emotions caused disease, social uprising, war, countless deaths, suffering, and misery.

Mond tells us that people initially resisted the World State's use of the caste ststem, artifical gestation, and extreme human conditioning. During the Nine Years' War, chemical and biological warfare combined with propaganda and suppression of books weakened all resistence. The World State destroyed importance figures and ideas of the past like Shakespeare, religion, museums and the idea of a family. The World State chose the date of the introduction of the Model T to begin their new era. To assist the World State, a mircle drug, soma, was created to cure the problem of old age.

The end of the book ends in a philosophical argument between Mond and John, the illegal son of the Director. and Mustapha Mond. Before this arguement, they argued about human experiences and what that the World State has destroyed and in the last chapter of the book they argue about religion. Mond shows John his collection of banned religious scriptures, and reads passages from the nineteenth-century Catholic theologian, Cardinal Newman, and from the eighteenth-century French philosopher, Maine de Biran. They say that religious belief comes from the threat of loss, old age, and death. Mond says that in a prosperous environment there is no loss, old age or death and therefore no need for religion. John wonders if it is a inhert response to believe in god, to which Mond responds that people believe what they have been conditioned to believe.

“Providence takes its cue from men,” is the famous line he says that encompasses the entire book.

John claims God is the reason for “everything noble and fine and heroic,” and says that if people in the World State believed in god they would not feel degraded and have reason to feel guilt. Mond replies that no one in the World State is degraded they just live by a different code of morals and belief. Mond says that if anyone in the World State is unhappy, Soma will cure them. He profoundly states that Soma is “Christianity without tears.” In the end, John wants god to help keep himself disillusioned from reality, whereas Mond is more logical and knows that Johns belief in god will lead to unhappiness, which is the ultimate human condition.

Brave new world

Brave new world so far has proven to be an aptly named book. It starts out introducing a world that is astoundingly new to the reader. This world has a caste system including 5 different levels, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. At the start of the book the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning is giving a tour to a group of new students at a Hatchery and Conditioning center. The Director explains to the students that the center uses the Bokanovsky Process to create 96 identical humans beings from one embryo. The reader finds out that babies are grown and conditioned in a "factory" and that viviparous living is a baffling idea to citizens in the World State. The reason for the 96 identical twins is so that everyone but the Alphas and the Betas (Bokanovsky Process weakens the egg so it would never be done to them) could more effectively do their jobs, and to create a stable society. The World State's motto is therefore also aptly named: Community, Identity, Stability. Podsnaps technique is another method introduced to us by the Director. Apparently it can speed up the ripening process of the egg in one ovary and can produce up to 16,000 siblings in batches of identical twins from one ovary.

The Director goes on to describe how the embryos travel on a conveyor belt for 267 days and on the last day they are decanted. The Director explains in detail the extreme conditioning some of the embyos may go through. The conveyor belt may shake at certain intervals to simulate movement, some embyos may be treated with alchohal or oxygen deprivation to ensure it fits into a lower intelligene and physical stature caste. Rocket-plane engineers would be kept in constant motion, and chemists would be made immune to toxic chemicals. Furthurmore some embyos destined to work in tropical climates are condition to be physically and emotionally dependant on heat in order, in the Directors words, for them to accept their inescapable social destiny.

The dystopian similarites between the first chapters of Brave New World and 1984 are very clear. The extreme conditioning in order for people to accept their "inescapable social conditioning" remind me of the conditioning that goes on in Orwell's novel. Big Brother wants to erase all knowledge of the past in order to condition everyone born. The reason is that if no one knows about the past, they will "inescapeably" be conditioned to accept and love Big Brother.

Just recently I had grilled octopus (it was a special) in a Mediterranean restaurant and absolutely loved it. I had decided that it had become my favorite comestible sea animal . Unfortunately, I found out that octopus at restaurants is extremely rare, and that it is very hard to make yourself. When I looked up recipes for octopus I found that the key to making good octopus recipes lies in tenderizing the octopus, otherwise it will have a rubbery consistency. Unfortunately, there is no established way to go about tenderizing an octopus. Many recipes are cryptic in that they simply say "tenderize the octopus." Upon further research, I found that the best, tender octopus experiences were had when the tenderizing method included beating the octopus over a table or another hard object for quite a while. Someone suggested letting it simmer for an hour, some said a half hour, depending on the size of the octopus. Overall, the tenderizing process is seen as the anathema of making octopus because if it goes wrong, the dish is ruined. Hopefully one day I will be able to make an octopus dish as tasty as I had in the restaurant.

Big Brother reference in Texas Pilot's suicide note

A pilot, Joseph Stack, in Texas crashed his plane into an IRS building in a furious rage against the IRS and society. One person who works in the 200 employee building was unaccounted for and two were hospitalized, while two bodies were found in the building. In Stack's suicide note read many disturbing things including a reference to George Orwell's big Brother. His note reflected many of the things that are prominent in Orwell's Party dominated society.

The following are quotes taken directly from Stacks suicide letter (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,586627,00.html)

"I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well."

"We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse."

Many of Orwell's ideas from 1984 are overt in today's society. Unfortunately, Stack could not deal with the problems he faced, or thought he faced, and took out his anger through violence.

As Stack said in his suicide letter:

"Violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer."

Just recently I watched a documentary on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1QaCeosUmw) about a blind boy, now a parvenu (he has been on Opera and in various other shows and magazines), who uses echolocation to "see". Echolocation is the method dolphins and bats use to locate objects by sound, clicking and projecting sound waves forth, then interpreting the sound waves that bounce back as objects. The video shows him rollerskating, playing his gameboy, and dribbling and shooting a basketball. Not once in these actives was he maladroit. An outsider wouldn't believe Ben is blind as his movements and actions look like that of someone how has perfect vision. Not being a credulous person I doubted that this could be possible. However, the documentary goes on to tell how Ben has developed a sonar mind. It tells of submarine sonar operators who go through extensive training that teaches them how to use their sonar machines on the submarine to locate objects in the water. The sonar operaters must study the sounds to determine the size, shape and distance using machines that cost millions of dollars. Somehow, Ben has managed to train his brain to do the work of million dollar sonar machines. All throughout the documentary Ben remains sang-froid completely unperturbed by the fact that he is blind. Ben states he wants to live on his own and that being independent will not be hard. However, later in the documentary (Part 3) the narrator states that Ben may be quixotic, and must realize he has limits, despite his extrodinary skill. Ben parent's tried to send Ben to a school for the blind for year before he started highschool, however it quickly became an anathema for Ben, who functioned better than most of the other students. Later on, Ben recieved training from another blind person (Dan) who uses echolocation for mobility. However, Ben deprecated the thought of using a cane which Dan and Ben's mother both pushed him to do. Ben thought that he was not handicapped and that the cane would label him falsely. Dan's training showed Ben that even echolocation has limits and that later on a cane would be necessary. Ben, being only 14, was obdurate and showed choler whenever somehow suggested the use of a cane.

1984 Ponderings

After having read 1984 I often think about the quarrels Winston had with himself, and the Party. More than that, I find myself reflecting on the part of the book when Winston is tortured and cedes his malcontent attitude toward the Party and gives in to ebulliently loving Big Brother. I found myself thinking that the book as a whole was very hypocritical (which doesn't detract from its value). In the book Orwell insinuates that good/bad is a matter of opinion and is not objective, yet in the book is looked at as a warning toward this type of future. My question is that if good and bad are not objective, then why is this future bad thing and something that we should be warned against? Also, the idea of newspeak had me wondering about the purpose of language. There are some who say that people are born inherently knowing what is good and bad, that somehow they just know. Yet the implications of this assumption are huge. For, good and bad are English words and it would be crazy to assume babies are born knowing English. The other side might argue that the babies inherently understand the "idea" of good and bad, but then, how does one express or have an idea without using some form of language? Some people disparage this point of view, because it makes them feel very uncomfortable, as Winston felt uncomfortable when he couldn't prove O'Brien wrong about there being no objective reality, and therfore whatever the Party did was justifiable.

I am currently reading a book called Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. The book is about a slave race called the Skaa trying to rebel against the Lord Ruler who oppresses them. The Skaa are enslaved by the Lord Ruler's Noblemen and his inquisition. The main characters of the book are two Mistborn Skaa's (meaning they have special powers) Kelsier, and Vin. Kelsier is the leader of a thieving crew that robs from the Lord Ruler, and Vin is a member. So far the tone of the book is saturnine. Kelsier is trying to start a rebellion to usurp the Lord Ruler but most of the Skaa in Luthadel, the seat of Lord Ruler, are not enthusiastic after years and years of enslavement and previous failed attempts. Kelsier hopes to throw the city of Luthadel into chaos using Mistwraiths, amorphous monsters, then use his rebel army to take control of the Palace and eventually the government. Some Skaa in the city think that Kelsier is trying to beguile them, and others have simply accepted the stigma of being a Skaa, and have resigned to being a slave until they die. If Kelsier is able to persuade the Skaa to his cause remains to be seen...

I saw Avatar last week with my family in IMAX 3D. Avatar was about a marine, Jake Sully, whose mission was to negotiate a deal with the Na'vi, a 10 foot tall blue skinned species, on planet Pandora that would include the Na'vi finding a new home on the planet, for their home sits on the largest deposit of a material that humans are trying to mine. Jake Sully reached his nadir when he started sympathizing with the Na'vi, effectively betraying the human military commander on Pandora, who promised that if a negotiation couldn't be reached, he would simply blow up the Na'vi's salient home. When Jake tried to warn the Na'vi, and Jake's Na'vi lover that the military would come if they didn't relocate, the Na'vi were incensed that Jake had been part of the plan. Jake tried to save face by saying he was hectored into and that he changed his mind, but the Na'vi excoriated him anyway. In order to win back the Na'vi's trust Jake tamed a huge banshee, an act of cachet, to show what an outstanding warrior he was. The Na'vi exonerated Jake, and Jake proceeded to lead the sortie against the military that was proceeding to destroy the Na'vi's home. I won't give anymore of the movie away otherwise I might spoil it. Overall, it was an excellent movie with the best visuals of any movie produced thus far. I highly recommend it.

Mayan Pyramids

Another of Crichton's adventures took him to Uxmal, Mexico, where he climbed the Pyramid of the Magician. The pyramid was built near the end of the Classical Mayan period, which is around 950 AD. It has 90 steps at 60 degree angles, making them very steep, and difficult to climb. Crichton remarks in the book that the rising sun illuminating the pale buildings of the ancient city was an ethereal sight. Among the ruins of the Pyramid of the Magician is the House of the Governor, House of the Turtles, and the House of the Pigeons. The pyramid stands 125 feet tall. The House of Turtles is named for a row of turtles on its front, and the House of Pigeons is named because its roof could have been a dovecote. Crichton reflects that even though the structures have names, no one really knows what they were called, or what when on in them. He then goes forth to say that the closer we look at history the less coherent it becomes. He says in his book that "The internal psychological pressure to make up a story, to explain the ruins before one's eyes, is powerful indeed." He is implacable because he wants to know what when on, but he never really can. He makes the analogy that "The Dark Ages weren't dark; it is hard to be sure what the Middle Ages stood in the middle of; and that the Renaissance is as much a birth as a rebirth. Crichton thinks that history books and tour guides beguile people into thinking they know more than they really do.

Wild Animals in Rwanda

Rwanda is one of the many places Crichton visits in his inspired memoir, Travels. Wether due to caprice, or ennui, Crichton decides to go on a wild animal safari in order to catch an ephemeral glimpse of the ever rare, mountain gorilla. The mountain gorilla is said to be the rarest of all apes, with only about 600 left in the mountainous region near Mgahinga in Rwanda. Crichton recalls that seeing a huge, salient mountain ape in its natural habitat was his greatest wildlife experience. In Swahili the mountain gorilla is called "Sokwe." Most grow up to six feet tall, and weigh in at about 300 to 425 pounds. The average lifespan is 40 years. They are vegetarians that live in dense forest, and whose only predator are humans. Crichton reflects in the book that he thought no other animal had the cachet of the mountain gorilla. He remembers the awe he felt, as only one mountain gorilla exists for every ten million humans.

Is Torture Moral?

Another political issue I have been following recently is that of torture. Torture is the intentional infliction of extreme physical suffering on some non-consenting and defenseless person. A U.N. symposium on torture in 1984 identified four reasons for torture, namely: (1) to obtain a confession; (2) to obtain information; (3) to punish; (4) to coerce the sufferer or others to act in certain ways. Supporters of torture say that in the case that vital information can be gleaned from a terrorist that would save American lives, then torture is moral. Critics of torture excoriate the supporters, saying it should never be used and is a greater evil than killing. George Bush and Dick Cheney's actions regarding torture were seen as transgressions of "moral law" (Bush and Cheney both authorized the use of torture by the CIA for Al-qaida detainees). Obama saw to it to eradicate torture as soon as he stepped into office. My view however is that in certain situations, torture is moral, and should be legal. Think of it this way, killing, and causing excruciating pain to someone can both be moral actions. When a police officer uses his gun to kill and save a life, he is applauded, not castigated. When doctors cut off limps and cause excruciating pain to save lives, they are also applauded. So then when can torture be moral? When thousand of Americans lives are at risk and a terrorist who has vital information that can save those lives won't speak. Thus, torture isn't immoral or moral, but the nature of the circumstances can be.

"White Noise"

A great book I read recently is "White Noise" by Don DeLillo. It won the National Book Award in 1985 and was in TIME magazine's list of 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. It was mainly about the contemporary, plugged in milieu that we live in, and humans' fear of death. The protagonist in the story is Jack Gladney, a professor who teaches Hitler Studies. The book has numerous vignettes to portray the society we live in. One is about a chemical plant near Gladney's home accidentally releasing a cloud of gas that may be poisonous. Another is about Gladney's wife, who takes drugs to remove her fear of death. DeLillo's saturnine view of technology for the most part predicted the future. "White Noise" was written before the explosion of the internet, and before Prozac existed, both of which DeLillo alluded to in the book. All in all, White noise was enlightening, and it belongs on the "To-read" list of anyone intrested in modern society.

College

When people ask me what college I want to go to after telling me about how they want to go to X University because they know it's "right" for them, I usually give a laconic "I don't know." Some people are amazed I don't know where I would like to attend and coin it as disinterest in college, but I am amazed at how some people do know where they would like to spend the next four years of their lives. To me, it seems as a lot of my friends want go to a certain school over another school for jejune reasons. When I ask why they want to go to a certain school many of them resort to the standard, hackneyed response of, "it just felt right when I visited." My parent's say I'm aloof from the issue of where I want go, but in reality I think about it everyday. I'm not looking for specialized programs or anything like that, so in truth most colleges look the same to me when I visit. I could see myself going to any of them. At this point, where I attend college will probably be a capricious decision.

Obama's Nobel

An issue that interests me and that I have followed closely since it began is Obama's reception of the legendary Noble Peace Prize. Obama's reception of the Nobel is causing politicians to have qualms concerning the "danger" of the prize. Some politicians feel that it will be a political "lead weight" for Obama, and other feel it was undesearved political bunkum. However, what those politicans don't understand is that the Nobel is not always awarded for a destination reached, but also for the herculean efforts of setting things on the right path, which is exactly what Obama is doing. Supporters of Obama's reception of the Nobel say he won it partly for not continuing the malevolent torture policies of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Conservative talk show media has taken a rather splenetic stand against Obama's reception of the Nobel, all for the wrong reasons, in my opinon. While Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize may remain a contested issue, I believe that Obamas reception of the Nobel is a Lilliputian matter compared to some of the biggest issues that face our country today, like healthcare, and Afghanistan.

I believe that aliens built the pyramids. (seriously) 

I believe that Google has all the answers.

I believe that you are the master of your own destiny.

The Red Wheelbarrow
 
by William Carlos Williams

so much depends

upon  a red wheel barrow  glazed with rain water  beside the white chickens.

I like this poem because after reading it, you can vividly imagine what the Red Wheelbarrow looks like. These two sentences invoke

real images in your mind. I not only see the red wheelbarrow, but the white chickens too, and the farm and pastoral land that probably 

surrounds them. 

I think Williams is trying to say that people don't truly understand poetry. Perhaps he is saying that poetry is more important and plays a bigger, better role in our lives than the news does.

What Is Success?

I'm 53 years old living in Oregon. My rustic mansion is spacious and beautiful, situated on 20 acres of lush green, pastoral land. Inside my house the biggest room is the library. I cherish this room more than any other, because in my spare time when I am not being a lawyer, I love to read. My library has towering bookshelves and rows upon rows of books, fantasy and non-fiction alike. In my garage, I have a sporty mustang, and a Kawasaki racing motorcycle. On weekends I go out on tracks with it, and sometimes use it in place of my car. There is no better feeling than going 60 miles per hour down the highway on a motorcycle with the wind screaming by you. My job provides me with enough money so I never have to worry about running out of money. Besides riding my motorcycle on weekends, I go down into california and hang out with my buddies, watch movies, and go to clubs. My wife usually comes with me, but sometimes has a girl's night out. Success. I'm 53 years old doing whatever makes me happy in life. That, is the definition of success. 

Its green top is scratched and worn from all the piles of clothes and papers my mom has put on it for storage. It is not meant for storage, but meant to play tennis on. However, as it provides a large surface area my mom has designated it as her personal storage place. On one side of the net lie piles of clothes and on the other side, lie boxes of papers. Its form is bent and one day, I hope to clear its top and reuse it.