Into The Lion's Mouth

Without a doubt, the 50's brought great things. Of course, the legendary king of Rock & Roll, Elvis Presley is included. But, there's something I have to add to my list. That is, the Twilight Zone episodes.

Not only was the episode "To Serve A Man" really creepy and entertaining. It was also a great example of poetic justice.

In the beginning, it invited the public to "shake hands figuratively with a Christopher Columbus, from another galaxy and another time". Automatically, I made reference to history. If this creature from another world is Christopher Columbus, then that makes the men in the episode the indians. It fits perfectly.

For example, going back to the 1500's, when Hernan Cortes wanted to conquer the Aztec City, Tenochtitlan. He was viewed by Montezuma, the Aztec leader, as a God. This made him trust Cortes. Eventually, this lead to the fall of the Aztec empire. As the old refrain says, Montezuma practically walked into the lions’ mouth.

The same happens in the episode. One of the men asks:

"Are we to assume that there is no interior motive beyond this vast humanity you speak of?"

"The New Christopher Columbus" then responds they have no interest in them. On the contrary, they have devices men can use.

" We can show you, for example, how to add a very cheap nitrogen to the soil... We ask only that you trust us. Only that you simply trust us".

After the men decipher the title of the book, they lose common sense completely. Just as Montezuma did, they walk into the creatures’ mouth. That being practically literal.

The difference between the spanish conquering the indians and the creature getting hold of men, is that indians were misled by their lack of knowledge and their naive minds. The men in this episode were misled by their greed and sense of superiority. When the men read the title of the book (To Serve Man), they immedietly jump to a wrong conclusion. As the episode says, they go from “being the rulers of the planet, to an ingredient in someone’s soup”. The idea of being served by another creature blocked the possibility that instead of being served as kings, they could be served as food. After all, what goes around, comes around.

Translation Of Dante In Pentameter

In front/ of me/ is the /hurting /city; A

In front/ of me/ I see/ the huge /eter/nal pain; B

In front/ of me/ people/ who give/ pity. A

God was /inspired/ by jus/tice, and/ not shame; B

It was/ the God/ who had/ crea/ted me; C

The God/ did it/ for love,/ and not/ for fame. B

Dante Translation

In front of me I see the hurting city; A

In front of me I see the eternal pain; B

In front of me people who give me pity. A

God was inspired by justice, not shame; B

It was he who had created me; C

He did it for love, and not for fame. B

Digital Dante

Hey,

Here's the webpage where I found the Digital Dante:

http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/new/comedy/index.html

Justice

It IS A Butterfly

We were looking at still art images in class and came across an image by Simon Renard De Saint-André. There was a discussion whether the creature on the flower was a butterfly or a spider. Mr. Tangen was sure it was a spider. I was sure it was a butterfly. I went home with the doubt in my head, looked it up in google and it turns out it IS a butterfly. The link might not work, but you can copy paste it to see my point. http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/r/renard/vanitas4.html Looking up "still life" in Wikipedia, I came across this- "... As for insects, the butterfly represents transformation and resurrection while the dragonfly symbolizes transience and the ant hard work and attention to the harvest.[28]" In my opinion, the butterfly could also represent change, or short life. This looks like a monarch butterfly who's lifespan, if lucky, is of about 9 months. If there are still any doubts, zoom in the image. The butterfly shape is very clear.

Aim Chat

Antonia says: Hey Emilia.

Emilia says: Hey Antonia. How are you?

Antonia says: I'm great, thanks.

Emilia: So, what are you doing?

Antonia: The science homework. How about you?

Emilia: I'm doing the same thing. Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?

Antonia says: I don't know. Doesn't Sofia have a party?

Emilia: Oh yeah, I had forgotten.

Antonia: So let's go to the movies and then we can go to the party together.

Emilia: Sounds great. :) Hey did you see Eminem died?

Antonia: No way!

Emilia: Yeah, he was in a car crash.

Anotina: Wow. I can't believe it. Are you sure?

Emilia: I think. My sister was the one that told me. Let me check on google.

Antonia: O.K.

Emilia: Never mind. It looks like it was just a rumor.

Antonia: Oh, O.K. A lot of celebrities have died this year.

Emilia: Yeah I know...

Antonia: Hey I have to go, my sister needs the computer. :S I'll talk to you later!

Emilia: O.K. Bye!

what i did this summer

this summer was actually pretty lame the first few weeks i stayed in bogota and read of course then i went to honda for the last time i used to have a house there but my grandfather decided to sell it we packed everything and left the day after it was really sad because i have a lot of childhood memories that took place there everything was chaos when we came back you couldnt even walk in my house because all the furniture from honda was there i spent most of my time at the hospital with my grandfather there my cousin and i watched the lord of the rings movies which were actually better than i expected one day my sister my cousins and i decided to go camping for a few days it was actually fun except the part that i fell asleep reading and two hours later when my cousin woke me up for lunch i discovered i could barely move i had never been so sunburned before the next days were terrible i couldnt sleep couldnt get out of bed to walk because the pain was terrible that was only for a few days though around that time my nephew came to stay for a few weeks and so did my aunt she brought me my laptop and ever since ive been using it for everything my brother also came to visit from spain a few weeks ago we had dinner with him the day before school started we hung out all day we had lunch and played guitar it was a great way to spen the last day of summer vacations i also went to buy shoes which was really exciting i was expecting more from these vacations i dont feel rested at all they were actually more intense than the last semseter of last year thats basically it at least i had enough time to finish the five books

Blogs Go Online Not On Paper

More than 100 million blogs in eight years is crazy. If you’re either Mr. Tangen, or one of his 10th grade students that did the homework, you know what I’m talking about. If you randomly came across my Blog, you probably don’t. This is one of the points Sara Boxer makes in her writing.

Blogs are like inside jokes, if the joke’s with you, then you understand. If it’s not, you’re lost. Reading a blog and not knowing what it’s about, is like running in to the middle of a conversation.

Putting a bunch of blogs together to form a book? I didn’t think it was difficult, after all, you could just Google Blog search a specific topic and gather a bunch of blogs. Considering the fact I’ll be in the hospital for two more hours, I decided to give it a try. I wnt back to our old 9th grade blog page and tried to put some blogs together. I hope I don’t get in trouble for using some excerpts without permission. My attempt for putting blogs together is the one that follows.

Excerpts of blogs about Job:

From my blog entry:

Wisdom In Job

“Job is a mixture of many things, it talks about faith, temptation, fear, anger, many values and feelings humans experience everyday. The chapter I liked the most was 28, in which the translation talked about wisdom, and where to find it. It gave great examples, which made me realize we have a lot of wisdom. We know where to get gold, how to molt brass and how to make bread. Such simple things had to be discovered at one point, and I think that as soon as they were discovered, they were considered some great invention.”

Where does gold, molt brass and bread fit in with wisdom?

From Maria Jose Fabre’s blog entry:

Infinite Loss

“At the end of Job, God speaks to Job and explains how he can not be always dependent on his people’s misery, how he must not meddle with human business and manipulate fortune. God speaks how everything has cause, not necessary his. In opposition, Elie Wiesel leaves the interpretation of God personal and purely Eliezer’s.”

How is the Elie Wiesel relevant?

From Ethan Metzler’s blog entry:

Job’s Worth

The entire predicament, the cause of Job’s wealth and prosperity as well as his loss and suffering were a result of Job’s faith. He was as close to perfect as a man can get in God’s eyes and he was well off before the Satan intervened. After the catastrophes set against Job he almost lost all trust and faith in God. His friends unsuccessfully attempted to comfort and open his eyes to the truth. Eventually Elihu was the only one who could do so. Once Job opened his eyes, he begged forgiveness, promised redemption and understood the purpose of the test.

What test is he talking about?

It’s either impossible, or really difficult to make 2 blogs or more make sense. These blogs were all about the same topic, but contain many different ideas and analysis. Assuming you were in my class last year, we all knew this topic quite well. Imagine not knowing what Job is about. You wouldn’t understand absolutely anything.

Another problem with mixing blogs is the fact that they are all done for different reasons. Why do people blog? As Boxer mentions,

“Bloggers assume that if you're reading them, you're one of their friends, or at least in on the gossip, the joke, or the names they drop.”

I’m guessing some people write blogs because they lend a friendly ear. A blog is an open space to write whatever you feel like writing about. So what if no one reads it? So what if no one understands it? At least the sensation of being heard is there. As the writer says,

"Now that fame and links are one and the same, there are bloggers out there who will do practically anything—start rumors, tell lies, pick fights, create fake personas, and post embarrassing videos—to get noticed and linked to."

People need to think they're heard of. Of course, there are others who write blogs as assignments or as a hobby. The reason why you write a blog affects the way you write it. For example:

You're putting baseball blogs together. You come across 3 of them.

The first one is written by Tom. He's in college, studying to be a spokesman at sporting events.

The second blog you find is by Lauren. She dated a baseball player once and is desperate to show people how this sport ruins relationships.

The third one is by John, a fanatic baseball follower. His blog narrates games and talks about how incredible it is.

The topic's the same, but they are completely different. Not only would you find a difference in opinions, the reason why these people wrote the blog affect the way they did it.

I agree with Sara Boxer when she says writing an anthology of blogs is a "dreadful idea for a book". Blogs must be kept online and separate from each other. Making an anthology of blogs would generate confusion and would take part of the essence of blogs away. After all, blogs are best when kept online.