US Pizza

It's dead winter in Arkansas, between the rival small towns of Batesville and Newark. The connecting road is a lengthy rope of black and stinky asphalt, blurred beneath the tires of a speeding vehicle. On either side of the road, thick mats of decomposing grass carpet the chilled earth. It's quiet out here, and cold, the kind of cold that hisses in your ears as it passes by, and singes the end of your nose and the apples of your cheeks red. Above, the sky is a warped solution of bruise purples, sopping greys, dim ivories. The only thing out there are the naked trees.

Paragraph Assignment

Usama bin Laden and his nameless flock of mislead martyrs and men are, essentially, a (cursed) household name these days, for reason we are all undoubtedly familiar with. In this winded dispatch delivered by an old man, we can read as America and her people, "the [terrorist's] enemy", is targeted, and cited as a force of evil - the home of the "allies of Satan" and the "brothers of the Devil" - and listen in as her assailants' receive a pep talk before the big "battle" between themselves and a couple thousand unarmed New Yorkers of all ages and backgrounds. Hours later, the face of America's fear would be distorted and reformed, this time resembling a face of a middle-aged Arabian man, with a beard and a turban. Not a specific person, not even bin Laden, but a profile. A profile, just like the "devil-worshipping" one they gave Westerners. In these days and times, we as Americans should remind ourselves not to behave like a bunch of hate-filled radicals, and never direct our anger towards our own people, or a moral people who are simply different from ourselves. Evil has no face, no flag, no country, and we should never forget that, or we will be no better than those who took innocent lives on the day of 9 11.

LMS

Everyone, at some point during their lives, has probably met someone like Curley of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. More specifically, everyone has probably met a victim of Little Man Syndrome; a phenomenon that occurs exclusively in men of small stature. Under the influence of LMS, a man can suddenly acquire a disproportionately large ego and an urge to compensate for their height deficiency. Curley is a textbook-example sufferer, with little other development or noteworthy attributes, the lack of which ultimately making him somewhat of a static, shallow character.

Curley exhibited such symptoms upon his first encounter with George and Lennie. Within seconds of making his entrance, he becomes combative, scrutinizing the two men who he doesn't know from Adam with a glance that "was at once calculating and pugnacious". The display of macho-ism was not only unnecessary, it was also somewhat ridiculous. After his departure, Candy makes the comment "Curley's like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. Kind of like he's mad at 'em because he ain't a big guy." This character Candy would know, seeing as he has been a swamper at Curley's family's ranch for quite some time, and has probably spent extensive time around him.

The author goes on to describe the various measures Curley takes throughout the novel to establish himself as tough, successful, and (most importantly) masculine. He wears "high-heeled boots like the boss" to distinguish himself from the paid workers. Since he was born into a little bit of money during a time where a little bit of money was a lot of money, Curley believes himself to be greater than all of the hired men at the ranch and make that clear to everyone around him. In addition to his boots, he also wears that infamous Vaseline glove and goes around telling people like Candy the swamper that he's "keeping it soft for his wife". He wants people to know he's got a wife to please, unlike most of the vagrant workers. Candy even commented that he seemed "cockier'n ever" since he got married.

The other characters are well-aware of Curley's affliction, and none of them seem to care to be in his company. George, an intuitive character, makes the statement "He seems like a son-of-a-bitch to me," shortly his first brush with the young man. This is understandable, considering the way Curley picked at Lennie so aggressively and without prompt. It's almost ironic, considering the fact that Curley sees Lennie for his size, and therefore sees him as potential to assert his own masculinity. In reality, Lennie is little more than a child, and asserting masculinity to someone like him is a hollow victory. Curley's wife says critically of him, "He spends all his time talking about what he's gonna do and guys he don't like." Of course, she would have to listen to all of Curley's endless big talk, being his spouse.

Overall, Curley's cocky, unlikable attitude is showcased throughout the duration of the novella, from the moment he's introduced until the final scenes. He never changes, never grows or develops, but remains a flat, static character; a pint-sized little punk with a floozy wife and a huge chip on his shoulder.

I Am poem

I am willful and cunning
I wonder why pizza comes in a square box if it's round
I hear my brother playing mario kart next to me
I see a computer screen
I want my brother to turn the volume down
I am willful and cunning

I pretend that my phone isn't ringing at me right now
I feel the air conditioner
I touch my sprite in a styrofoam cup from sonic
I worry that my new shoes are going to give me blisters
I cry when my new shoes give me blisters
I am willful and cunning

I understand that it was my turn to do the laundry last night
I say to my dad "I'm going to do it after I'm done typing this"
I dream that this guy named Toby wants me to eat raw butter
I try to tell him no, because that is gross
I hope that this hang-nail will stop hurting
I am willful and cunning

thINK Assignment # 3 : Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat.

To Kill a Mockingbird, for me, was a pleasant surprise. 

It was the first classic I'd cracked open with legitimate determination to see the end to since I'd abandoned Black Beauty in the fifth grade (I suppose I should say I didn't consider Lolita, my ninth grade "banned book", much of a classic). In all honesty, my expectations were low; I prepared myself for page after page of mothballed nostalgia, gruelingly outdated dialogue, and characters and times I would most certainly be unable to relate to.

But, as I said above, I was pleasantly surprised. To Kill a Mockingbird was a true page turner, an engrossing story that handled the darkest issues of the times with wonderful voice - that of a guiltless, however feisty, child. 

I repeatedly picked up the theme the "death/conviction of innocence" — evident throughout the story until the very end, when Boo Radley stepped out to become an unlikely hero. A man condemned as the town's ghost story was the one to rescue Scout and her brother Jem from being killed by Bob Ewell in the end, revealing that everything is not always as it seems. The book closed with Scout wishing she would have thanked Boo Radley for the gifts he'd given her and her brother after she saw him for the first and last time. 

And so though it was not outwardly said, and the character of Boo Radley was without a doubt an enigmatic one, I could not help but see him as the story's second Mockingbird, of a sorts. Certainly, he exhibited no maliciousness, was not guilty of indifference, did not display even a questionable motive — he simply protected a couple of children of whom he was fond. He was not the monster in the closet the town would have him be. To me, he seemed an exemplary man of kind heart and a misunderstood outer shell. It was, after all, his act of heroism that gave Scout faith in her neighbors again. 

Similarly, the humble, hard-working Tom Robinson was sentenced to death for an unforgivable crime on the basis of exactly two pieces of evidence; the illiterate word of a white-trash girl, and the difference in skin color between she and he. The town of Maycomb would not stand to have its ubiquitous law broken — that every black man is guilty until proven innocent, and even then, he is still guilty. And in the process of this debauched trial, a trio of children had their innocence shaken by their firsthand exposure to the hate, discrimination, and injustice of the society in which they live in.

thINK Assignment # 2 : High-Definition Television.

I used to write

I used to write letters
I used to sign my name
I used to sleep at night
Before the flashing lights settled deep in my brain
But by the time we met
The times had already changed
So I never wrote a letter
I never took my true heart
I never wrote it down
So when the lights cut out
I was left standing in the wilderness downtown

Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that something pure can last

It seems strange
How we used to wait for letters to arrive
But what's stranger still 
Is how something so small can keep you alive
We used to wait
We used to waste hours just walkin around
We used to wait
All those wasted lives in the wilderness downtown

Ooooo we used to wait
Sometimes it never came
Ooooo we used to wait
Sometimes it never came
Ooooo we used to wait
Still moving through the pain

I'm gonna write a letter to my true love
I'm gonna sign my name
Like a patient on a table
I Wanna walk again
Gonna move through the pain

Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that something pure can last

Ooooo we used to wait
Sometimes it never came
Ooooo we used to wait
Sometimes it never came
Ooooo we used to wait
Still moving through the pain

We used to wait for it
Now we're screaming
Sing the chorus again

I used to wait for it
Hear my voice screaming
Sing the chorus again

Wait for it

The song 'We Used to Wait' by Arcade Fire, made its debut on the album The Suburbs, which dealt with material fished out the past  -  in this context, growing up in the suburbs of Houston, Texas in the 70s. The album, attested Win Butler [lead vocalist], was not to be treated as a 'love letter to, nor an indictment of, the suburbs', but should rather been seen as a letter from the suburbs.

Not so much a lament as a personal allegory, I saw this song as finding today's means of long-distance communication to feel a little too ghostly, or transitory, or fickle, as opposed to the patient, comfortably idle, 'waiting' of yesterday. Really, we don't find ourselves to be doing very much waiting at all these days, do we? We have no need. We have Facebook feeds, Twitter accounts, and instant text messages, you see. Instant contact is not only available; it is very nearly trivial in our contemporary busy life format. 

The expectation is no longer there  -  which, I have decided, is unfortunate. The expectation was an aspect of romance in and of itself, and once could have been a reason to feel... content. 

thINK Assignment # 1 : The Little Mermaid.

Ever since the critically acclaimed, 70s hit thriller "Jaws" came out, people have had an irrational fear of sharks. An irrational fear that, ironically, seems to appear completely rational - after all, with up to five rows of arrowhead-sized teeth and a tail with enough muscles in it to snap your arm in half with one good whomp, sharks are easily the most lethal and terrifying entities lording over your local summer resort area, right?

The answer your looking for is no. In reality, you are more likely to die from a jellyfish sting, lightning, or a falling coconut than a shark attack. 

I actually read this in a pamphlet I fished out of a stack of postcards inside a Florida boutique (where I'm vacationing this summer). The pamphlet itself was titled IRONY: The Plight of the Great White. Just that morning, I had stepped out on the beach to see a sign nailed into the sand, baring the words SHARK FEEDING HOURS: 4:00-5:00 A.M & 7:00-8:00. P.M. I took the pamphlet with me, and did some additional research on other species of sharks as well.

What I discovered was both astounding, and grisly. I will first explain with some figures: This year, approximately 4 people in the world will die from shark attacks. On the other hand, 104,000,000 sharks will die at the hands of humans this same year. 78 million of those sharks will be killed solely for their fins, a process which is preformed as follows; the shark is netted and dragged on deck, upon which each of it's fins are cut off as it still breathes. It is then thrown back, alive, where it will sink to the bottom of the ocean floor, unable to move, and then die from blood loss and/or starvation in the following days. Shark fin soup is a popular dish in Asian Countries, where the shark fin is falsely believed to have health benefits upon consumption, such as sexual performance enhancement or cancer treatment (incorrect). 

The irony of the situation is that due to all the pollution we dump into the ocean, the sharks and other apex predators like dolphins and whales have accumulated a dangerous level of toxins, particularly toxins such as mercury. Nowadays, eating animals like sharks can cause mercury poisoning, which will not only cause nerve damage and eventual mental retardation, but also decrease your sexual performance. 

So. 

How this applies to YOU: 

Sharks are an essential part of our ecosystem. They've been around for 420 million years, and the balance of ocean life has evolved to be entirely dependent upon them. Without sharks to eat fish on the lower food chain, such fish will breed out of control and eat up all the world's plankton, which is needed to produce nearly half of the world's clean oxygen (the other half being produced by the rain forests that we're sawing down around the equator). If sharks were to go extinct today, pollution of the world's air could escalate to disastrous levels within months. Not decades, not years, months. Imagine breathing from an belching exhaust pipe. 

Sharks only produce 1-2 pups per year. If we continue to hunt them at the rate we are now, they will go extinct. As of right now, there are only 3,500 Great White sharks left in the ocean, making them even more endangered than the Siberian Tiger. 

How you can help:

Educate people! If the population knows that eating shark could potentially poison them - as it was most likely illegally fished out of the sea and therefore unchecked for lethal diseases like mercury poisoning - then they will be less inclined to eat shark, which will decrease the market for shark fins, and eventually break down the illegal trade and help stop the endangerment of sharks.

Assignment # 1