It was interesting to learn more about the war, I was very surprised and shocked to learn that gas companies charge America, their own country, $25 per gallon.  Not only are they charging so much to their own country, but our vice president is a major stock holder in that company so he is becoming very rich of the demise of the country.  The government has to pay the amount because we need the oil for the war to keep our troops mobile, its essential resource.  I believe we are obligated to stay in Iraq because although deaths are occuring if we leave now all those lives would have been a waste.  The soldiers in Iraq right now are holding their government together and if they were to leave the country then everything would fall apart and the whole war would be a huge waste of time, money, and effort.

I went to cnn.com and luckily right on the homepage I found this article on racism

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/12/racism.poll/index.html

Today, how serious of an issue is racial bias in this country? Would you say the problem is very serious, somewhat serious, not too serious or not serious at all?

This article was very interesting to read and learn about but it was also very disturbing to know how blacks and whites think so differently about one subject.  Although racism should be out of our society for good, it clearly hasn’t left.  It seems as if nothing has really changed except that racism is more hiddin and brought about in society.  A poll was given from December 5th until the 7th by telephone and the people who took the poll were either black or non hispanic white.  They were asked how serious of a problem was racism in todays society.  It was astonishing to see the results because of the differences between the two races and how different they thought of the issue.

poll results —->  http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0612/poll.racism/frameset.exclude.html

This is related to Huck Finn because Huck lives in a time where racism is a very normal thing, it wasn’t uncommon in that time to be racist and prejustice to blacks because that’s the way people were thinking in those days.  The book also takes place before the civil war so not only is racism towards blacks normal but it was still in the era of slaves.

The one main aspect of satire is that it speaks the words that most people would dare not say, Carlos Mencia and Dave Chappelle both use satire in there stand up acts and most people find them very funny.  The film Borat was another form of satire that brought up alot of contraversy through out the nation, the movie covered social problems and views of the American people.  Another wonderful example of satire has to be South Park, this show makes fun of everything possible using satire.  It has gained so many fans that the show is praised and laughed at world wide.  The thing about satire is that it shouldn’t be taken too seriously, it pulls out people’s flaws and I think you should just be able to laugh at it because it is very funny.

Its horrible to learn about how the slaves were treated during that time in U.S. history.  Today in class everyone went up to the board and wrote a sentence or two about how they felt toward the topic.  I wrote about how slaves were fed once a month and how they were given clothes once per year.  The slaves weren’t treated well at all, they were just given enough to survive the brutal years of their lives.  Slaves were forced to work and if they didn’t work to their full potential they were punished by getting beaten or whipped, its hard to believe somebody would do such a thing.

wasserman…. i need grill!!

I remember that we stopped somewhere in central Texas at a Texaco gas station that also sold food and other items. For some reason, I don’t recall now why, we all walked into the station’s diner and took a seat to eat. The manager immediately came over and said, “Sir, excuse me.”My uncle answered, “Yes sir.”

“We don’t serve your kind.”

 This relates to “A Lesson Before Dying” because it shows the racism and segragation in that time period.  The african americans in Grant’s town are all treated badly and a perfect example is Jefferson’s trial.  He is sentenced to death even though he was clearly innocent, that just goes to show you how they were treated.  In the quote above, this black boy went to a diner to eat but he wasn’t served and was told leave because of his race.  It’s depressing to see that people could be treated this way just because of the color of their skin.

The Shakespeare production i saw outside of class was “The Tempest” which was performed in our own school.  It was a little confusing at times because of the language and the unfamiliarity of the words.  I really dont know what to say about the play because I found it very confusing and didn’t really know what was going on.  Although the play was unclear to me it was obvious the actors and actresses performing the play worked really hard.  They had to learn alot of lines in a bizarre language and they put in alot of effort.

After reading and viewing three adaptations of the Scottish Play it is very clear that they are all very different.  Each adaptation shaped the Scottish Play to fit into their own culture, to make work for their way of life.  The film “Throne of Blood” was an adaptation of the Scottish Play made to fit into japanese culture.  Most characters remained the same and had the same personalities like Lady Macbeth, who remained scary and wierd.  Character names were turned into japanese and the scenary shifted.  Instead of large castles, the thanes lived in forts.  Lady Macbeth tried to get Wushizu to kill not only the king, but also his best friend Banquo in order to insure his mighty reign.  Another change was that the war continued throughout the film while in the original it was only a battle.  “Travesties” was written in the same old english writing but it was made to rhyme which really confused me at times.  Sometimes they just wouldn’t make sense and it would throw me off as I read it.  “uMbatha” was an adaptation of the play shifted into African culture.  This was the most recently made of the three adaptations and was about uMbatha becoming tribe leader.  All three adaptations were very enjoyable to view and read because it gave a diverse personality to the play.

I believe that the United States needs to pull its troops out of Iraq, the are not accomplishing anything at the moment.  The help create peace in one town and then go to the next to do the same, meanwhile the first town has gone wild again.  It is a never ending process and a waste of time.  The troops should be pulled out of Iraq because they are wasting their time and troops are dying for no reason at all.  We have done all that we could in Iraq, we found Saddam and took him out of power and we set up a new government in the country.  We should let them live their own lives instead of us telling them how to live it.

“The helicopter crashed in Salahaddin province, north of Baghdad, the military said in a statement.

The soldiers belonged to Task Force Lightning, attached to the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade.

The US military said no enemy fire had been observed in the region at the time of the crash. The incident is being investigated.

The military has also announced that three other soldiers were killed in fighting over the weekend in Anbar province.

Eighteen US soldiers have been killed in Iraq in November, the Associated Press news agency said.

More than 100 American troops were killed in October, making it one of the bloodiest months for the US in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein’s hometown, Tikrit, is the capital of Salahaddin province.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6120216.stm