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.

Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

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Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins takes place in New York City with an 11 year old kid, named Gregor, as the main character. Gregor lives in a small apartment with his mother, 8 year-old sister, 3 year-old sister, and his grandma. Gregor's father had disapeared about 2 years ago making his mom, a secretary, support the whole family with her monthly salary. However now, Gregor's family is about to fall apart as Gregor and his baby sister delve into a strange realm miles below the city.

     It was a hot August day as Gregor sat at the table wishing he had gone to camp. However, when his father had mysteriously disapeared Gregor had inherited a lot of extra chores, like watching his grandma and Boots, Gregor's 3 year-old sister. Looking for something to break up the monotinous day Gregor decides to take Boots and all the laundry down to the basement where four squat washing machines resided. Down in the basement Gregor watches as Boots runs inbetween the washing machines and thinks of the last time he had been happy." The last time I was truly happy was...before Dad went missing,"thought Gregor. Suddenly a scream drags him back to reality and he races to where he saw Boots last just in time to see Boots fall into a large grate in the wall.

     Gregor and Boots fall for several minutes finally landing softly on the stone floor. As Gregor takes in his surroundings he notices the only way out is through a large tunnel so he picks Boots up, and starts to jog down it. After jogging for 10 minutes Gregor begins to see a light ahead and as he runs through it he is deafened by the roar of a large crowd. Looking around, Gregor realizes he had stepped into a form of stadium and is greeted by an elderly man, named Vikus, who says he is in Regalia, city of the humans, as he leads Gregor to a palace built entirely of stone. Once at the palace Vikus tells Gregor of a prophecy about an overlander, a child from above ground, would come to the underland in search of his father.
     Gregor, convinced that he is the child, goes on a quest to rescue his father. His father is being held by rats, which are 6 feet tall, and Gregor is forced to befriend giant cockroaches, spiders, and rats if he will be able to rescue his father. As Gregor travels across the Underland he is urged to hurry by the memory of his mother, waiting for her children to come home after days of waiting. Will Gregor be able to make it across the dangerous Underland and save his father in time?

Within the genres of fantasy and science-fiction is a sub-genre called "steam punk." This genre is based around a world powered by steam very similar to ours. Many of the books in this genre are based on true events like World War I or non-fictional characters. These elements add to the depth of the story by tieing it into our history.

Recently steampunk has become highly popular in Europe. There are people who dress like steam punk people and people who attend conventions just for one sub-genre. Steam punk is being colaborated into everything, from books, to buildings, to clothing, to devices, like guitars and watches.

Even in America people are becoming more aware of this interesting sub-genre. Reading about what the world would be like if we had followed the path of steam instead of modern technology.

Demonic Discoveries

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Demons and mythological creatures are often thought of as fairy tales. Obviously fake creatures that we tell stories about to our children for enjoyment. However, what if these tales are true and elves, dragons, and demons exist/existed in parts of our world but just in hiding, afraid of coming in contact with humans? Dragons may have been dinosaurs that survived the meteor/other theory, reptilian, winged, dinosaurs that lived till the first of humans.

Elves, fairies, and dwarfs could easily live in an unknown cave somwhere in a mountain range. They could have colonies of themselves but be hidden somewhere we have yet to explore. Perhaps they as oblivious to humans as we are to them, and if they do exist, after all they are tiny while we are fairly large and it would be easy to miss them.

Although there has yet to be proof of them living on Earth, there is no proof of them not living somewhere else. We have never seen another creature that has come from a planet other than ours, therefore it is theoretically possible that they may be smaller versions of ourselves similar to our interpretation of dwarves, elves, fairies. Humans may be only a beginning link in a series of humanoid beings that have evolved faster then us on similar planets to ours that we have yet to discover.

The prospect of mythological creatures being alive on a distant planet or somewhere on our own is unlikely but possible. However if we believe that they don't exist then they will not, but if we have an open mind about them, then it is possible that they might show up one day. So keep an open eye out for small, scurrying, human shaped creatures and we may find yet another inhabitant of this world.