why we fight

I think that it is very smart how they started it with an old speech. I always think that it is powerful when they put in old video that is very powerful. It also allows you to see the connection to the way war was viewed during that time with the war going on today. I personally believe that there were more legitimate reasons back then, but that's just what I think. I liked the old war footage, and the current war footage. It was also cool when eisenhower said something about development, while they showed a shot of new age airplanes. I think that they do a good job with powerful music mixed with powerful images. aswell as powerful words with powerful images.

book report

Hesse, Herman. Siddhartha. New York, NY. New Directions publishing company: 1951.
Reason, Type and Setting: I chose this book because I had heard from a lot of people that it was really good. Also I have always been fascinated with Buddhism. The book is in an older time, it is also realistic fiction. It didn’t actually happen but it could, and it was from a different time period. The book takes place in India. Basically there's a guy named Siddhartha. He is a very good meditator but thinks that he can no longer learn from his father. He decides he must go on a journey to reach enlightenment. He brings his friend. They eventually reach Buddha and receive teachings from him. Siddhartha’s friend decides to stay and become a monk. While Siddhartha does not really think that he can be taught to reach the ultimate enlightenment, so he decides he must go and reach it on his own. Along the way he falls in love, has a son. He also ends up reaching the ultimate enlightenment on the river.

Character: Siddhartha. He is the main character. The whole story is about him. I picture him being very skinny, without much clothes, and Indian looking. He is very determined driven person. He dreams of becoming enlightened. He is constantly trying to understand himself, as well as himself. I chose this character because he is the main character. He is interesting because he is very motivated and he lives an extremely different life than I do, which I think is very fascinating. The plot eventually made the character reach the ultimate enlightenment.

Evaluation: I did like the book. During parts it even made me want to move to India, and devote my life to meditation. It sounded so cool. It was definitely entertaining and interesting. I liked how different his life was from mine. I learned a lot about this style of living. I learned a lot about meditation and enlightenment. I would recommend this book to open minded people. I just think that this book wouldn’t be that great for a really religious republican for some reason. It is like a real life book, so that’s how it compares. It isn't important to read. I mean you can live your life without it, but it is definitely an eye opening book.


Put yourself in the plot: I cant even imagine going through what he went through. Its wild. Its crazy to think of letting go of absolutely every want and desire in your body, and not owning anything. That’s so different than my life. So its hard for me to imagine what it would be like. If I were him I don’t think that I would have been as resilient. I don’t think that I would have been able to go all the way through with it. It definitely ended the way that I wanted it to.


I know nothing about the author, and I have never read a book at all like this. I may possibly read one like this in the future.

current event

2 Australians robbed a restaurant. One of the robbers grabbed a bag which he thought contained 26,000 dollars. which turned out to only have bread inside it. Also During the robbery, the same man that had grabbed the bag, also shot his accomplice in the but with his gun. They both plead guilty and face 8 years in prison.

I just think that this is pretty funny. First of all they only stole a bag full of bread. Second He shot his partner in the back. After all this they are both going to jail for the next 8 years. that totally sucks. But they kind of deserve it for being so stupid.

current event

Edwards takes aim at media
CNN

John Edwards has been receiving very limited media coverage. He is very upset at this because the media acts as if there are only 2 democrats running in the primary's. He partially blames his low numbers in the polls to the fact that he is receiving such minimal coverage. They say that he has done well in many debates and that his numbers are up in some states yet the media is ignoring him.

I think that this might be because Clinton and Oboma are more interesting. mainly just because one is black and one is a female. So they are big and somewhat controversial. I think that regardless of media attention Edwards would still be loosing. But I do think that he would be doing better if he were to get more attention.

book report

Book Report

Gantos, Jack. Hole in my Life. New York. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: March 26 2006.

My mom had bought this book for me. She told me that it was the author of a children's story called Rotten Ralph that we used to read when i was younger. She said that it was supposed to be really good, so i decided to read it. This book is a memoir. It takes place mainly on a boat and in prison during the 1970's.

Basically Jack Gantos is a teenager. Very separated from his parents. Ends up moving out just to make it easier for them. He is very interested in writing, but he doesn't do much work in school. He starts smoking weed and writing less. Then he gets offered a job to sail a ship carrying a huge amount of marijuana and he will be paid 10,000 dollars. He takes the money and decides this is his way to go to college. The money will easily pay for it. Eventually they are caught by the FBI and he is sent to prison for 2 years. He gives a lot of insight in to what prison is like. He explains his thoughts in depth and gives you an idea of what it was like to be him. You also see his mind change throughout his time in prison.

Jack is the main character. The entire story is about him so he is pretty much the only one to talk about. Well in the picture of him on the cover he is tall. He has long black hair, and a thick mustache. Also during the book he said that he had really bad acne after being on the boat for a long and that when he was stressed out he would “work his face over” and he would just pop all the pimples on his face. He is pretty interesting. He tells the story very well and it is a good story. It is cool to know that all of this actually happened. The plot really changed him by the end of the book. That was the whole point of the story. Him changing. He actually became a determined person that got in to college and actually did something. He actually became a writer. Where before he was just a pothead.

I did like the novel. It was a very good story and it was very well written. I was interested and entertained throughout the story. I definitely learned a lot about what prison is like. Which is cool. It also helps me never want to break the law because I do not want to go to prison. Its point about life and values where that you should actually act on your goals, not just talk about them and get prepared for them. It taught me to never break the law enough to go to prison. I would recommend this book to others. I think this book would be more powerful to someone that is experiencing things similar to that of what the main character in this story was experiencing.

Well this book was a true story, so it is real life. It doesn't really remind me of anything. As I said, I think that this would be an important book for people who are experiencing similar difficulties as the main character was.

Its hard for me to put myself in his shoes because we have such different lives and we are very different. But I could put myself in prison, at such a young age, like he was. I know that it would be really scary. I think it ended very well, and I was happy with the ending.

I know that he wrote a children's book called Rotten Ralph that I used to like when I was a kid. This book is nothing like the other one. This is his life story, not a children's book. I have sort of read a book like this (A million Little Pieces) but I think that this was a much better story. I really liked the main character of this one, and I didn't really like the character in A million Little Pieces. I probably wont read anything else from this author And i probably wont read another book like this.

current event

A stray cat looking for a warm place to stay last week found itself in an electrical substation. while it was there it snuggled up to a warm transformer. When it did this the cat touched a live circuit which caused a short that instantly killed the cat. But thats not all. When the cat died it blew out nine electrical feeder lines which caused 12,000 homes and businesses to go without power for over 3 hours.

At first I actually thought this was pretty funny that a cat could cause 12,000 properties to loose power. But I ended up realizing that this was pretty sad for both the cat and the residents effected by this outage. It is obviously sad for the cat because it died. But it also sucks for the people of Idaho that must have had very cold houses for a few hours during the night

trial reflection

Mock Trial:

I was as prepared as I could have been for the trial. All my work was to be done on the day of the trial with the video camera. I was able to get some more experience working with camera angles and things like that. I also got to see the troubles with loosing video. Becauseat the end I accedently recorded over the defenses opening statement. I think that the defense had the best case because they actually had logic backing them up. Whie the prosecution had only hear say as their arguments. But I definitly would say that both sides came up with some very clever arguments on the spot. Next time I will find the perfect place to video tape from before I start. I also wont make the mistake of recording over video. Well I learned about how horrible humans were in olden times. They would kill people for being witches without any proof. But these days I know that people wouldn’t be killed for being a witch anymore. Our judicial system has advanced a lot since then.

Essay:

I really do not know enough about our judicial system to say wether or not it assures a fair trial. I have seen law an order a lot but I wouldn’t say that that counts. I do know that innocent people have gone to prision, so that says that our judicial system isn’t perfect. I would say though that our own mock trial allowed for a fair trial. Everybody knew that the accused was innocent and fortuanetly the jury agreed that he was innocent as well.

I think the most important part of the trial was questioning the witnesses. This was the make or break point of the trial. When the lawyers were questioning them it let the jury see the real information. Its much more concrete than the opening statements because that is just the rhedoric of lawyers. But once you get to the witnesses that is where the real information comes out. One good question to a witness can change the outcome of the trial. That is why it is so important.

I believe that I would trust a group of my peers. They are people that are like me and think like me. They are normal people that can relate to me as just another person way more than a person of the law could. I think that is probably the best way because these people can actually put themselves in your position. I think that if we had the same jury's all the time it would be screwed up. These people would stop feeling compassion. They would be less like you. You would just turn in to another case that they need to make a decision on. WHile if it were a jury of my peers these people would take it seriously. They would take the responsibility very well because them being on the jury is a one time thing.

My role in the mock trial was extremely simple. I was a recorder and I just video taped the whole thing. At first I tried to get a shot of everything. I realized that was too far away and it was hard to see everybody, also the lawyers backs would be turned to me. So I tried a different position. This one required me to move the camera back and fourth between each person talking. This was better because you could see the witnesses and the lawyers very well. The only problem was that I was directly in the way of the balif when he seated the witnesses. So I eventually just held the camera. This way I was able to walk around and get shots of different people. I would zoom in and out, all kinds of stuf. This definetly worked better. The only problem was that it was hard to keep the camera steady so the shot was slightly shaky. The weight of the camera also started hurting my hand after a while. It wasnt that the camera was so heavy, it was just the angle that it is held at that hurts your hand. As far as my reaction to the mock trial I agree that the right decision was made. Obviously he was innocent. But I think that the jury should have maybe pretended they were living in the 1600's and act according to the people of that time by charging him as guilty.

I dont think that something as radical as the witch trials could happen today. Theres no way people these days would allow for mass numbers of people to be killed off of hearsay, as well as being religiously motivated. That definitley wouldnt happen. There are to many people that wouldnt allow it. Also in the court of law these days you need a lot of evidence to put someone to death. Back in those days they just killed and killed thousands of people without any concrete evidence. So no I dont think that something that extreme could happen these days.

Trial Recount:

Jury questioning:

This part was kind of pointless. First of all everybody was already going to be on the jury so there was no reasoning for the questioning. Anyway, the questions themselves were pretty dumb as well. They were simple yes or no questions like "do you believe in witches" that were asked only once to each person, and each person was questioned at random.

Opening statements:

I am having trouble remembering what the opening statements were. I know that They were both worded quite well. They were both quite convincing, yet it was quite obvious that the defense had a much more of an argument. But the prosecution did a pretty decent job. They said things like "we can prove that this man has preformed witchcraft." when really he couldnt.