Animal Farm by George Orwell

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Animal Farm by George Orwell is a political satire that starts off with a rebellion of animals on a farm. All of the animals come together and say why. They then fight back and drive all of the farmers off of the farm and decide to govern themselves. They then teach everyone to read, create an anthem, and write the writes and rules fo the farm ( constitution and declaration). However, two of the pigs that are running the farm quickly become corrupted and greedy. They then chase the third pig who is the only pig with a kind/true heart off of the farm and call him a traitor and a scandrel.
     The two remaining leaders set all of the animals to work and behind their backs slowly change all of their rules. Whenever a misfortune happenes the blame it on the third pig who had run away and binding them behind a single cause. This constant fear of Snowball ( the third pig) attacking made all of the farm animals cower behind the pigs granting them even more power. However, slowly the farm changes and life slowly gets worse. Starting with harsh winters and small rations for all including the working animals.

     The animals all have horrible memories and when they try to remember what life was like before they only think," It was worse then this." The one animal who did remember was a donkey who stayed quiet and chortled to himself as he outlived all of his generation. He watched the farm slowly get worse and fall into a state worse then when the animals had been under the farmers with the two remaining pigs turning into dictators, and slowly becoming more and more like humans as they changed all the rules the animals had voted on so long ago. In conclusion, this political satire is worth reading because of its interesting story and subtle sense of humor

Tampering with nature

http://www.csb.yale.edu/userguides/graphics/ribbons/help/dna_rgb.gif

DNA... it is a truly amazing thing, for without it, we wouldn't be who we are today. DNA shapes us for the better, or for the worse making us different from everyone else. If everyone had the same DNA then we would all be the same, there would be no differences, no way to tell yourself from somebody else. So is it right for us to be tampering with what makes us unique as human beings?



Recently, technology has evolved to detect what "genes" we have, and what "genes" our children will have. We can tell whether weak hearts are in our DNA, or whether we might live to 100 or only to 76. By knowing what is going to happen to us early, we can try to change what will happen to us in the future . For example if high cholestrol runs in your family then you will know to keep a healthy diet so as not to put as much pressure on your heart.


In the past ten years we have gone from analog to digital, 2d to 3d, and from not caring about the enviroment to trying to help all living creatures like tigers, pandas, and various kinds of fish( for more information on the enviroment follow http://ecoteensera.blogspot.com//). Now that we are able to see all of our "genes", how long will it be before we will be able to alter them? Should we progress so much that we can alter all of the animals we share Earth with? Will we lose some of our humanity if we are able to make ourselves out as the perfect human? Only time will decide when and if we will have this remarkable/horendous invention.

Where does the time go?

http://sj-climateclock.org/

As human beings, we are constantly striving for more. We built the car, but that wasn’t fast enough, so we made ships, and that wasn't fast enough, so we made airplanes, but those still take hours, and now we are still striving for something faster. We wanted access to information, so we wrote books, but most people couldn't afford them, so we made libraries, but they are to far away, so now we have the internet, but it isn't ever fast enough for us, so we pay money to make it go faster.

As we make more inventions, we make time go by, that much faster. Instead of spending all day at the market we now spend 10 minutes at the market, so we can make it to our meeting, from which we have to rush to pick our kids up from school, drop them off at home, and rush off again to pick up the dry-cleaning. Making hours go by without us realizing that we haven’t actually done anything truly productive. By making ourselves more technologically advanced, we are simply making our lives more arduous.

Every invention has sped life up that much faster. The home phone for example made it so if we wanted to talk to someone; it was just 10 dial tones away, opposed to having to send a letter. The home phone later evolved into the cell phone, allowing us to call each other even faster and on-the-go. So, is technology really helping our lives like so many believe? People believe that life was longer and better in older times, however others disagree that with all the new cool gadgets we have, life couldn't be better.

Harry Potter

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     A series of books that I am sure you all know of is Harry Potter. Harry Potter has become so big over the past years that I often see kids sporting shirts saying that they are in Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or even Gryffindor. Although this is not my favorite series of books I do greatly enjoy pouring over its contents every-so-often. Even though this book series is a series of movies now, I still feel that reading the book is endlessly better then actually seeing it. Not that I dont enjoy the movies, as I am looking forward to Deathly Hallows, but the movies leave out large amounts of information that were essential to making the books loved by all.

     In case you dont know of the fad known as "Harry Potter" then here is a quick summary for you. Harry Potter grew up living in his aunt's and uncle's house. He was always unloved and cast in the, rather large, shadow of Dudley, his cousin. However all of this changes on his 11th/12th birthday when he is told that he is a wizard by a half giant named Hagrid. At first Harry doubts Hagrid, but then when they walk into Diagon Alley, all of his doubts vanished. He is suddenly engulfed by robed figures that say he is famous for "being the one who lived" and vanquishing the Dark Lord, Voldemort. As he walks through buying all his school supplies, spell books, an owl, robes, a wand, and a cauldron, he realizes that he is the center of the wizarding world. Harry is then whisked off to Hogwarts, a school of witchcraft and wizardly, where he is surrounded by young wizards and witches just like him.
    
     Harry faces many challenges throughout his years at Hogwartz starting with the sorcerers stone, the basilisk, Sirius Black, the Triwizard Tournament, and the prophecy about him. However, Haryy overcomes all of these hurtles and many more in his seven books.