Alex is sentences to 14 years in state prison. He makes the best of his time there, but he killed a new cellmate in a brawl. The prison decides to send Alex to a reform to "make him a good boy". Alex doesn't take it seriously and only pays attention to the fact that it lasts two weeks and afterwards he will be released. When he gets to it he instantly enjoys the first day. They give him more luxuries than prison did. All he has to do is watch films and take a needle each time. However when they inject the needle and make him watch the violent films, he feels sick to his stomach. The films are so extremely violent he wonders whether they are taken with the consent of the people or not. He can't stand to watch them, a complete change from his violent self.
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The only change from the first blog post is that Alex and his droogs get increasingly more violent. They met and fought another gang and then pillaged a writers house and raped his wife repeatedly. They left after Dim shit on the floor. An interesting note from this part of the book is when they rip up what the writer was writing, titled A Clockwork Orange. I'm not sure what that means exactly but it's kinda meta. Because of this it reminded me of this show called Chowder, which is solely based around it being meta comedy. It always brings up the fact that it's made by writers and doesn't exist on it's own. I think that you could compare the life of a regular citizen to the life of someone in the United States if that person lived in a city where violence is prevalent.
The Dystopian novel I chose to read is called A Clockwork Orange. This book was written in 1962 by Anthony Burgess. This book takes place in a not so distant future (from that time) in a town in England. The future envisioned in this book is probably well before the present now. It centers around a teen named Alex and his droogs, or friends. He and his friends are "ultaviolent" and make trouble whenever they can. They drink milk laced with drugs at bars and then go off on violent raids in the town. Their terminology is heavily influenced by Russian slang and the society seems like a mix between capitalistic America and a communist state.
I've read other dystopian books before and they all share similar aspects such as being placed in the near future. I like this one however because it has a different vibe while you read it. The slang takes a little more thought to understand what things mean but it helps to immerse you more into the book. Things such as "ulta-violence" in the place of the word rape, and "horrorshow" in the place of the word good make the book all the more negative in tone. CNN Thursday April 12th, 2018 "Australian 'punk' turtle that breathes through it's genitals added to endangered list" Zahid Mahmood In Australia, a very unique turtle faces extinction. The Mary River Turtles with their distinctive punk rock hair and chin spikes also have the ability to breathe out of their genitals. They breathe underwater through special glands in their cloaca. This equips the turtles to stay underwater for up to three days. The green Mohawk is just a plus, the time spent underwater allows for algae to grow atop their heads.
The Mary River Turtle was added to the endangered species list and are at risk of extinction. It's number 29 on ZSL's (Zoological Society London) register of Evolutionarily Extinct and Globally Endangered Species list for reptiles. This is only a short amount away from number one, the Madagascar big-headed turtle. Others on this list are the world's largest sea turtle, the leatherback, and the gharial, a crocodile from the rivers of northern Nepal and India. Both freshwater and sea turtles are under pressure across the globe. Humans have them in high demand for anything from meat and shells to selling them as pets. So, what caused these turtles to end up on the endangered species list? Rikki Gumbs, a reptile biologist at ZSL, said that because of the exotic pet trade in the 60's and 70's, they were being kept as pets. Because of this they were already at risk of being endangered by the time they were recognized as a species in the 1990's. The turtles take a while to reach sexual maturity. It can take as long as 25 to 30 years. This means an entire generation of turtles was lost to the pet trade. Their population is now extremely small. These turtles are very unique and it's a shame how close to extinction they are. I can see why they would be desired as pets, however many wild animals should stay just that, wild. Hopefully efforts can be made to raise this decreased population and prevent something like this from happening again. I will comment on Matthew Mau and 's blog. CNN Tuesday March 6th, 2018 "West Virginia lawmakers reach deal to give striking teachers pay raise" Eric Levenson and Sarah Jorgenson In West Virginia, striking teachers have caused cancellation of nine consecutive days of school. The motive behind this is to increase the pay and benefits of teachers in the state who have historically been some of the lowest paid in the country. The proposed solution will raise not only the teachers pay, but all state employees will get a 5% raise.
On February 22, about 20,000 teachers began the strike by walking out of schools across West Virginia. Public school teachers in 55 counties across the state participated in this show of organized labor strength. Educators demand higher wage and benefits. This has caused nine consecutive days of public school to be cancelled. West Virginian Gov. Jim Justice signed a bill Tuesday that gives a 5% pay raise to all state employees, this includes the striking school staff. The House of Delegates and Senate unanimously approved the bill and the Governor signed it into law. Teachers are expected to go back to work Wednesday. What led up to this? West Virginia ranks number 48 out of the 50 states on how much teachers are paid. It's one of the only states where wages went down between 2015 and 2016. The percentage gap between teachers annual average wage and the national average range from 24 to 35 percent depending on elementary to high school. The annual average wage doesn't account for deductions for social security, retirement, and health insurance. These low wages push a lot of qualified educators to leave the state. I believe this is a step in the right direction. There's still a long way to go before a lot of teachers in the country make a livable wage. I think if teachers collectively made more money, it would be better for everyone involved. Billy's grandfather entered his hounds in a hunting championship.The other competitors are all adults with expensive gear and nice hounds. Little Ann wins the beauty contest on the first day. The other hunters are nice to Billy. Dan and Ann tree 3 coons adn qualify for the finals. When the night of the finals comes, the dogs tree their first coon quickly. Then a blizzard comes while they're chasing their second coon. When they all rush to the sound of the dogs they realize Billy's grandpa is missing. They find him with a twisted ankle unconscious. He wakes up and tells Billy to chop down the tree and get the coon. When he does, three coons jump out. The dogs kill two and one gets away. They go after it and when they find the dogs they treed their fourth coon. This wins them the championship and Billy wins 300 dollars. One night the dogs treed a mountain lion. They fought for a while but when Billy tried to save his dogs, the mountain lion knocked him to the ground. When it was about to pounce, his dogs jumped and saved him. Billy hit the lion in his ax in the back and it eventually died with both dogs attached to it's jugular. Little Ann only had a hurt shoulder but Dan was hurt all over. As they were heading back his entrails got caught on a root. Billy pushes them back into his body. They try to save him but Dan dies.
I think a great sequel would be set in the future in the same time period as the book started. Billy would be an adult. Right after he finishes telling the story it reminds him of how much he loved his dogs. He wants to get that feeling back and has a lot of free time so he decided he wants to get hunting dogs again. The sequel is centered around him raising his dogs and noticing they share a lot of the same characteristics of his old dogs. I would like this to have a happier ending however. I will comment on Matthew Mau and Sam Gressitt's blog Billy hunts with his dogs every night. The price of coonskin goes up because of the demand in the New England states so Billy gets to hunt all he wants. He sells the skins at his grandfathers store and gives his dad the money. The coons start tricking Billy's dogs while they're hunting which puts them into danger. Especially in the winter months. The coons do tricks in the snow which eventually led Little Ann to fall into the river and almost die. Billy fished her out using a long stick and his lantern handle.
The Pritchard boys are rotten kids who dared Billy to come hunt the "ghost hound" on their property. It is a coon that has evaded every hound that has ever tried hunting it. When Billy goes, his hounds actually tree it. Billy decides he doesn't want to kill it because he thinks it is impressive, but then one of the boys gets their hound Old Blue. He wants to kill the coon. Billy wrestles him and then one of the other boys shouts because Old Dan and Little Ann are fighting Old Blue and winning. The boy Billy is wrestling hops up with an ax in hand and heads for Billys dogs to kill them. Billy runs after him but the boy trips on a root. When Billy looks back after getting his dogs off Old Blue, the boy is dead. He fell on his ax. If I was in this book, I would definitely be friends with Billy. Everyone else around him seems like asses. I think Billy has really good qualities as a person and he gets a really rough time. He could use some friends that aren't his family members. The kids who live around him are trouble makers and are really rude. The Pritchard boys are the people that I would have a really hard time getting along with. They act like the entitled kids in town but they're also hilbillies like Billy. I will comment on Matthew Mau and Sam Gressitt's blog. Billy wants to begin training his dogs to hunt. His grandfather teaches him how to trap coons so he can get a coon hide. He creates traps and for days he doesn't catch any coons. Billy's dad says that he'll catch one, he just has to wait for his scent to wear off. When a coon is finally caught, Billy and his father kill it together. He uses this hide to train his dogs and when raccoon season starts they're trained and ready. The first coon they trap up a tree is in a giant tree he calls the "big tree". Because of the size he decided he wouldn't cut it down, but his dogs get sad and Billy becomes determined to cut it down. He spends all night chopping at it and his dad finds him in the morning. Then his grandpa teaches him how to make a scarecrow so that he can go inside and sleep. When he comes back out the next day he sees that Dan and Ann had been switching off positions to guard it all night. Billy gets blisters later in the day while chopping and he thinks he will have to stop. He's overwhelmed with sadness and he says a prayer. The wind then knocks the tree down and Dan and Ann kill the raccoon.
Billy and his grandpa's relationship has strengthened over time because of the trust they put in each other. If they didn't trust each other as much as they do, Billy wouldn't even have his dogs, let alone have them trained as well as they are. Billy and his relationship with his dogs has strengthened over time since he got them as it naturally would anyways. However because of all the training their bonds are stronger than that of a normal dog owner. Old Dan and Little Ann have a special relationship full of trust and communication. This was most likely there from the start of their lives but as they began to train grew stronger. This is shown in such instances as the fact that they took turns overnight guarding the coon in the tree.
My reading partners are Matthew Mau and Sam Gressitt. Below are links to their blogs.
CNN January 24, 2018 "Monkey see, monkey 2: Scientists clone monkeys using technique that created Dolly the sheep" Jen Christensen This article is about Hua Hua and Zhong Zhong. These are two baby long-tailed macaques who were cloned using somatic cell transfer. They are the first primates to be cloned using this method, however they aren't the first primates to be cloned. Prior to them, 5 sheep were cloned using this method. Scientists finally found a new way to clone nonhuman primates after many failed attempts. The approach they used was based off the approach used to clone Dolly the Sheep in 1996. This technique has to do with reconstructing an unfertilized egg by removing the cells nucleus and then replacing it with the nucleus from another cell. It's then stimulated to develop into an embryo and transplanted into a surrogate mother. Since humans are primates, this brings up ethical questions as this could be theoretically used to clone humans. The scientists had no intention of that and only see a future where this will help them to understand human diseases. This breakthrough was performed in Shanghai, China, where scientists hope to see more labs cloning monkeys in the future. The research for this was published on Wednesday, January 24th, but the scientists had spent three years prior to this perfecting their tweaks on the technique used to transfer the nucleus of the cells. The two monkey babies were born in late 2017. The cloning of these primates were a result of years of cloning research. The first of which related to this started on sheep in 1996. This is when Dolly the Sheep was cloned. After Dolly, 4 more sheep were cloned using the same cluster of cells years later. In 1999 a monkey was successfully cloned, however it was not by using the same technique as the sheep. This technique involved splitting embryos, much like the way twins form naturally. This is considered a simpler form of cloning which produces a much smaller amount of offspring. The research from the sheep was tested and then tweaked with modern technology in order to find a successful way to clone primates using somatic cell transfer. Before this, all attempts to clone primates using SCNT failed. It was believed to be a result of something in their DNA. Several different factors contributed to why they were now able to be cloned. I believe this is a step forward in the right direction in understanding how to treat certain human diseases. I also believe however, that this brings up ethical issues as humans are primates, and this could be used to clone humans. I agree with the article about new laws needed to regulate cloning. I will comment on Noah Godina's and Matthew Mau's blog posts. |
AuthorLeah Maxwell Archives
June 2018
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