Animal Thoughts (ramble)

There are many different animal rights groups across the globe, some government sponsored and others just the people rallying for the ethical treatment of animals. Some people love and support these organizations, while some simply don’t care or don’t pay too much attention to this issue. I am one of these aforementioned people.

    It’s not that I don’t care about the treatment of animals, it’s just that there are way too many issues in my life currently that prevent me from having time to support these movements toward ethical animal treatment. So when something comes up about Seaworld not housing killer whales any more there really isn’t much I have in terms of an opinion. Sure, Seaworld’s choice is more than likely because of the backlash happening against it recently from animal rights groups, but I really don’t care either way. It’s just another business choice in the world that really has no effect on me or my life.

Now onto the topic of zoos, aquariums, and circuses. Zoos and aquariums have always been my favorite natural world attraction since I was a kid. They’re educational, fun, and a very interactive way of showing children the biological wonders of the world. Now, I do understand how some people would be concerned for the animals and their treatment by keepers, but the vast majority of the time the animals are well treated by keepers and scientists alike. Most keepers are even required to have a veterinary service background and know basic animal care to even be considered for application. Overall, zoos and aquariums are very good sources of education and entertainment that I feel should stay open whatever the cost in order to inspire a new generation to preserve the natural world around them ( and that’s even what most of these establishments are geared to do in the first place).

Then, there’s circuses. Claimed to be one of the many ways to rule Rome (Pomp and Circumstance, translating to bread and circuses) these mobile entertainment attractions have been entertaining humankind since the times of the romans. However, that doesn’t mean they are completely civilized attractions. Circuses often try to out do each other with the ridiculousness of their stunts and, while most human performers are fine with it, animals are forced against their will to participate in these seemingly ludicrous and insane stunts that are well beyond their capabilities. While I don’t think circuses should be completely condemned, at least have animal guidelines in place so that none of them are forced to do something that they naturally can’t cope with (in other words, horse riding is fine, but horse stacking is wrong).

In all, I am pretty much indifferent to everything involving animal treatment, however it would be nicer to see animals treated better in captivity as fellow beings than as ludicrously impossible to perform entertainment. 

Screening Addictions

You see them everywhere. In your home, at school, even , ironically, at parties. You try and get away, but you can’t. They’re too popular, too “with the times”, to be gone away with. In fact, they’re so much like this that people are beginning to form addictions to their soft glow, their touchable screens, and their buzzing buttons. I am, of course, talking about smartphones.

    Personally, I have never come into contact with a full addiction to my smartphone (or, as I like to refer to it, my “handheld toaster” ). Sure, I spend some time on social media, texting, and the little mobile game once in awhile, but I never really stay on it for more than , on average, maybe an uncontinuous 2 hours a day. This may sound like a long time, but compared to how long the average teenager is on his/her phone it’s a pretty short period of time. Now, this could be because of the multiple things that I do with my time and my personal preferences. Compared to every other smartphone on the market, mine is basically the worst you could get. Small screen, constantly freezing, and very small amount of memory space to use for apps and such. However, even if one of my friends handed me the best new phone tomorrow morning, I would probably still spend little to no more time on it than I do already on my LG Toaster. This is not to say I wouldn’t like one, it’s just to say that I wouldn’t need to spend several hours on it as an addiction, mainly because I have other things to do with my time (namely schoolwork, scout projects, marching band, NHS, etc.) and also because I prefer to socialise with my friends ,rather than text them all the time, if I can. I can understand why some would have an addiction to their phones, but I am not one of those people.  

Death of a Salesman #2

Death of a Salesman, as an overall play, is a very moving piece with a message that not many people want to see or even acknowledge in their lives: the possibility of ultimate failure. The play has the father of Biff and Happy, Willy, deal with the exact realisation of this message. Willy is constantly in a state of delirium, remembering the past and seemingly reliving it in his mind as the time he last remembered everything being alright, his “American Dream” still intact and on the way. However, the present is different (as shown in the last blog I did). Willy’s dreams of having Biff be successful in his life and becoming rich like his brother, Ben, are completely destroyed and he can’t come to terms with this fact. This is especially shown whenever he even so much as glances at Biff, which continually wears on Biff since the reason he ultimately gave up his early successes was because of Willy. In the book, Biff progressively tries to get Willy to see that his dream is dashed and it slowly wears on Willy, eventually having his flashbacks show him that the reason Biff gave up was because of an affair Willy had with his secretary. When Willy finally sees this fact and opens his eyes to the reality of what has happened to his dream, he becomes extremely depressed to the point where his wife, Linda thinks Biff and Happy are only doing what they’re doing to cause Willy pain and suffering instead of opening his eyes for him. In the middle of this depression Willy thinks of a way to show his boys that he is well known and successful to inspire them all while giving them the money to become successful themselves: suicide. After doing so by crashing his car, however, it has a mixed effect on his family. No one comes to his funeral except his family and his best friend Charley with his son ,successful lawyer and childhood friend of Biff ,Bernard. Biff, Bernard, Charley, and Linda only question his motives, saying he didn’t have to do it. Happy, however, takes Willy’s intended message and strives to become a successful salesman and fulfill Willy’s dream of a successful child. A flute plays, symbolising hopelessness and failure, as

the curtain falls.

Death of a Salesman #1

This week, I diverted from my usual literature of chapter books and novels and chose something a little more...pre-fabricated, plays. Plays are pretty much a whole different species of book when it comes to the literature world. They are usually done as a live action or visual performance first before becoming a book, which causes them to lose some of their imaginative potential (especially if someone has already seen the visual version). However, I still enjoy reading them and imagining all of the different versions of written plays that could possibly make sense to different target audiences. Anyway, the play I chose to read for the past week was Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. The play follows a salesman, Willy, and his family. Willy is an old man who can’t get over the fact that his first son, Biff, is not nearly as successful as he had hoped back when he was a football star in high school. This has caused him to become disillusioned from reality and look upon ‘the good old days’ instead of what is actually happening around him. Biff and his brother, Happy, visit Willy one day to try and fix Biff’s discord with his father by getting him a real job. Ultimately, this fails since Biff never graduated high school, but Willy won’t accept the truth that Biff isn’t known as well anymore as when he was a football player. Instead, Willy tries to have Biff lie to him, but his persistence to tell the truth leads to Willy going into a fit that only bad things happen to him because Biff flunked high school. The play appears to be mainly about the American Dream and how not everyone can attain their dreams and, instead of changing their dreams to be more attainable, live in self denial that they could never not attain their dream of success. The play currently has me on a cliffhanger which I am desperate to resolve and seems to be able to keep any reader’s interest. I wonder where the plot will progress from there.

Fallen Angels #2

Amazing. That is the one word I will forever associate with the book Fallen Angels. While the beginning seemed to be going at a very slow and snail-like pace as I last left it. The book quickly went ‘around a corner and headed for home’ almost directly after, all while not losing its emotional appeal which, come to think of it, has a pretty large amount of symbolism behind it suggesting that’s how a new soldier usually feels when he’s simply thrown into a war. So, after Perry and Peewee get off their transport plane, they are then shown their quarters and are introduced to their squad, consisting of Lobel, Monaco, and Corporal Brunner (who are basic soldiers) and Sergeant Simpson (the leader of Perry’s squad who just wants to make it out alive). Perry’s platoon leader is first Lieutenant Carroll, a kind and compassionate leader who the men under his command love and adore, and his company commander is Captain Stewart, a man so hell-bent on getting militarily recognised that he constantly puts the men under him at risk and sends Perry’s squad on the most dangerous missions just to get his medal. After a few days without activity, Perry’s platoon is then sent in by airdrop to take a strategic point from the Viet Cong. All seems well when his platoon gets there, but Carroll soon realises it’s a trap and they are ambushed. As Carroll calls for a medevac (Medical Evacuation) he is shot and killed. Perry and his squad all make it out alive (*cough *cough plot armor *cough *cough) and make it back to base in relatively one piece (they have bullet wounds but nothing serious). They are then introduced to their new platoon commander: Lieutenant Gearhart. Gearhart’s inexperience from this point on puts the whole platoon in danger on every mission they go on and leads to mounting casualties on the platoon. Sergeant Simpson is then replaced, after protesting about Gearhart’s inexperience to Captain Stewart, by Sergeant Dongan, an extreme racist who puts anyone who isn’t a white caucasian in the most dangerous and risky situations. Perry’s squad all-around resents the new chain of command, but they eventually default and deal with it. On one mission, Perry’s squad is sent to check out a village supposedly passive. They are then ambushed in a rice paddie, with their entire squad in shock and under fire. Peewee and Perry then are ordered to try and surround the Viet Cong and attack them from the flank. In the process, they get separated and Perry is shot in the leg. From then on he narrates his first battle wound until he meets up with Peewee, who is also wounded and doesn’t have any of the semi-psychotic tendencies he showed in the beginning of the book, as if he had his own brush with mortality. They are both in a cave when suddenly, the gunfire stops and they both pass out from exhaustion. Later, Perry wakes up on a medical frigate and is told he’s going home, he then sees Peewee who confirms that they are both out of Vietnam and heading back to the states. Overall, this book is probably the best I have ever read. It really takes in the whole concept of the ‘soldier experience’ and puts it down not just in words, but in its writing style and demographic. Best of all, it decided to blend the emotional and action-based concepts without having a clear bias to one or the other. Fallen Angels is truly one of the most fantastic books I have ever read.