Goals: Fourth Edition

My first goal was to organize my papers a few minutes after class instead of putting them in a pile. Yaaaaaaaaaaah. Still kinda need to work on that goal. I still put my papers into a messy stack.

My second goal was to prepare for twenty minutes on my socratic seminars. However, we never really did any socratic seminars this quarter so again, I might have to keep this goal for next quarter.

My third goal was to finish my AR by February. I met this goal because I got more than the required amount and I finished my reading before February. However I actually took the test in the first week of March.

My first goal this quarter is to organize my papers a few minutes after class instead of putting them in a pile. This was my goal last quarter but I still need to work more on this goal.

My second goal is to prepare for twenty minutes on my socratic seminars. This is because I never had the opportunity to achieve this goal last quarter.

My third goal is to finish my Research Project before the day it is due to minimize the stress. I tend to hold things off until the last minute so finishing early on such a big project will help me for high school.

Oxymorons

Holy wars is an oxymoron because wars, by definition, are unholy. All major religions condemn killing but wars involve killing. Because wars involve killing, and killing is "unholy", wars would also be unholy. So for there to be a holy war kinda contradicts itself making it an oxymoron. So many wars now are fought over religion because all of the religions feel that theirs is best or the real one, or the "correct" one and that they should fight over which one is the best. However, in order to accomplish this, they are breaking the rules of their own religion. The excuse then is that once we fight and our religion wins, then there will be no need to fight and no need to break the rules. However if all religions feel this way, then the wars are never going to end because everyone must keep trying to prove that their religion is the best. This will then keep going around in an endless loop.

A World War, Could it Happen Again?

I think that in my lifetime, WWIII is a possibility. What is going to happen, I think, is that it is either going to start with a major terrorist attack and the war is going to be Western countries fighting against the middle east and a few dictatorships. The other possibility is that some dictatorship is going to get out of hand. Then there will be nuclear weapon threats. Eventually, someebody is going to do something stupid that is going to get the whole world blown to pieces.
For the middle eastern fighting, the outcome is just going to be a much bigger gulf war. Nothing too serious will happen except there will be a lot of countries fighting in a fairly small space. With the nuclear war, so many people are going to be angery with eachother that there will be alot of missiles flying around and a lot of side swiching. The basic teams will be Western Europe and America vs the dictatorships. China and Russia will be the big superpowers whose choice is allies will decide the war. Britain, France, USA, Russia and China will all be very tense with eachother. It is going to be a larger Cold War that gets much more serious and withh more countries involved. It is going to end when several nukes have been fired off and many borders will change. Also, the UN will be replaced by something more powerful and more global that will stop a nuclear war from happening again.

Anne Frank Questions

Q #2
I think that if Anne Frank hadn't taken her diary, that our understanding would only be slightly different. Understanding of the war and of the holocaust is well documented and there are people here who are still alive who lived through them. One piece of info that Frank provides that is not well documented is what it is like for childeren and what it was like to have to go into hidding. This is what makes Frank's diary unique.

How to Make a War, WWII Style

Ingredients:
1 Meaningless document known as the treaty of Versailles
1 Incredibly ineffective League of Nations
1-Cup German Appeasement
5 Tbs of Fascism
6 ounces of chunky German aggression
Japanese Aggression to taste

Combine the Treaty of Versailles and the failed League of Nations and whip vigorously until well combined. This should leave you with Britain and France feeling quite guilty.

Next add the German appeasement. Keep on adding extra German appeasement until you have dough that is sticky, but not gooey. Be careful not to add too much as this process is hard to reverse.

Knead in fascism until you have a firm, yet workable piece of dough. The fascism and the appeasement should react when baked.

Fold in the chunks of German aggression. This will add texture and flavor to the war. Make sure you get a good brand, as this will be your war’s highlight.


Rub with Japanese aggression and bake until it is blood red.

Serve with death and destruction.

Serves 58 countries.

WWII Letter

April 24, 1945

Dearest Mother,

The war is terrible. Today, our brigade along with thousands of allied soldiers stormed the Sakishima airfields. We were backed up by British planes and ships that provided firepower. However these blasts make it impossible to move around or to see. They say that these blasts are helping us to destroy the enemy's heavy guns but they don't mother. They don't. Several times a day, friendly bombs and Japanese mortars blow our good men to pieces. I knew when I joined that I might die but that honor was more important. I didn't know what war was like then. Now I want only to come home, away from all of the death and destruction. Yesterday as we were landing at one of the islands when the Japanese kamakazis attacked. They sunk two of our ships and I coud hardly bare to see all of the poor men who were scrambling to escape from the sinking ships only to be killed by the kamakazi's bullets or to drown. Lator that day, we won an important piece of land in the hills where many mortars were located. But we payed for it in blood. All throughout the scorched and splintered tree bodies were strewn everywhere. The smell and the flies was enough that even Big Johny Thomason couldn't hold it in. At the end, we came across 5 young Jap soldiers who were trapped in one of the caves. Rather than living, and being captured, they decided to blow themselves up with hand grenades. Those Japs and their honor. That is the only thing I respect about them is how they love their country and value their honor. War is terrible mother. It really is.

Your Loving Son,
Howard A.

Animal Farm Critique

The movie of Animal Farm seemed to me like a fairly accurate representation of the book. Although it seemed a bit abridged and shortened, all of the main ideas were pretty well covered and there were only a few changes from the book. These changes included making Benjamin Boxers friend and making him seem more active and less cynical. In the book, Benjamin wasn't Boxer's friend, he never worked, and he was much more negative and cynical. Also, the end of the movie where the animals revolted was not shown in the book. However, if the book was to be an accurate representation of Russia in the twentieth century, and if it continued on a bit more, it would have shown something like that because something along those lines ended up happening in real life.

Although it covered most things well, it really lacked the slogans showed in Animal farm. Boxer's slogans, the sheep's slogan, and the lyrics that are important to the beasts of England are all missing. All of these are fairly important to the book. Blaming Snowball for everything and threatening the animals with Jones coming back which saves the the fat pigs' butts from being over-ruled was also missing from the movie. Alot of this could have been solved if the movie had more speaking. All in all, I think that this is a pretty good representation of the book though.