The Identical Difference

B:

A:
With every sentence you read in Calvino’s “Invisible Cities”, you start thinking that you understand the novel less and less, and then the novel comes to a point in which you feel like you understand it more and more. As you try to understand this novel, you begin to realize that it’s all linked to real life. It changes, but stays the same. It’s hard to understand your purpose in life, but it’s easy as well. When you add a film like “Waking Life”, to a book like “Invisible Cities”; you are left with a mixture of doubt and security, because you are so sure that what they’re saying is true, and that they’re all right, but perhaps you didn’t catch the point. The main point in both of them is simple: Life is not always the same, and there is not just one possible way to look at life.

If we take a look at Invisible Cities, for example, we find a part where Khan feels like Marco Polo is describing the exact same city but in many different ways. As if Marco Polo was carefully dismantling the city and rearranging it in a completely different order. What Khan feels is completely accurate. Polo is, in fact, describing the exact same city. What this tells us is that the way in which we look at things may change things a lot. It works in the exact same way when we take a look at Waking Life. There are many parts in which the people who the protagonist encounters throughout his dream mention how life is not really the same all the time. For example, there’s a part in which there are two women speaking of how we are not the same people that we were seven years ago, because our cells completely regenerate and change, and we also change physically. In order to remember how we “were”, we have to make up a story to connect the “us” from the past and the “us” from the present. A story that ends up being fictional most of the times. So, are we really the same person? Are those memories really ours or someone else’s? It’s just like the cities, who may all be the same at the end, but they’re different cities because you evoke them with different thoughts.

In “Waking Life”, we are basically given a very long speech by many different characters about why life is different when seen from other points of view. One of the speeches that drew a great deal of my attention was one given by a chimpanzee. At first it seemed like it was funny, then it seemed weird, and then it ended up being so serious that you could forget the fact that the speaker was a chimpanzee. Ironically, he was talking about humans´ evolution, which at first does not seem like a very appropriate topic to be spoken of by a chimpanzee. However, once you realize that the meaning of the chimpanzee is not just the irony, but the message that it transmits, you understand really why it is that it is a chimpanzee giving the conference and not a human. After all, we all relate the chimpanzees to extremely primitive humans, and yet they are not so “primitive”. In fact, in many aspects chimpanzees can be much more “advanced” than us, and this is exactly what the man who appears right after the chimpanzee talks about. According to him, there is a much greater gap between regular humans and people like Freud or Nietzsche, than there is between regular humans and chimpanzees. This is telling us that we are much less “advanced” than these chimpanzees. The monkey giving the conference about human evolution speaks also about how human life could’ve been very different if we had taken other steps, and the chimpanzee himself is a living proof. It is because of steps we made that we’ve “progressed” from chimpanzee to humans. The picture that corresponds to this situation is picture (A), which shows the chimpanzee wearing a white robe and reading his speech, while the humans are watching the show. The chimpanzee is evidently seated above the humans, showing superiority, and I could note that throughout the whole scene, the chimpanzee stays well above the humans’ heads. We can also see the chimpanzee dressed and with glasses, while at least the humans on the picture have an apparent lack of clothing and of other signs of “development”, or “technology” that would usually be present. The link between the chimpanzee and the humans is imminent, since we often relate them to the origin of our evolution, but in this picture we are seen as the same species, as if there was absolutely no difference between the chimpanzee and the humans, and maybe there isn’t. Maybe they’re just like two cities that are described differently.

Image (B) shows the movie’s protagonist walking besides one of the many different characters that he encounters throughout his dream. They are right in front of a huge city with a purple sky, and are talking about human individuality. The woman right before this scene was talking about how she’d hate to be an ant, because they’re all just like the others, and they always obey what the rest of them do. A city may be the ant colony of humans. All of the residents of a city live equally, ignoring each other and yet working in unison to make the city prosper. Is the woman’s nightmare already true? Are we perhaps already like ants? There is no connection between this picture and “Invisible Cities”, except perhaps that the background of this screenshot is a city, and that they’re talking about how we may all be the same but no one has yet realized. Perhaps we really are the same already, and we just like to see each other in different ways. Or perhaps we are all different but would like to be the same as everybody else.

In short, the pint of both “Invisible Cities” and “Waking Life” is maybe just to make us think about similarities and differences. Because of that, I think that cities as individuals are not important in “Invisible Cities”, and that’s why I think that there aren’t any cities that stand out when you relate them to “Waking Life”. What really is important are the cities as a group, since these reflect the message that both the novel and the movie intend to communicate. There are many unsolvable mysteries in the world, and we might never know the correct answers to them, even if we think we do. Our point of view may dramatically change all our life, and we must be find or avoid the difference between what is the same and the similarities between what is different.

Smart Flu

A nightmare has been around in these past few months. The flu… Well, not any flu, it’s the swine flu, which was an epidemic sickness that shook and is shaking the world. It started in Mexico, God only knows why. Mexico, being amongst the top ten most visited destinations in the world, helped the sickness move around the world, and spread it first to France and US, which are also conveniently amongst the top ten most visited destinations in the world. What’s even more convenient is that traveling is done mostly on airplanes when it’s about crossing the seas. So it’s you breathing the same air as some other 200 randomly chosen people, which perhaps raises the chances of acquiring the sickness. The US, with its admirably efficient health system, is the second country with the most deaths and by far the country with the most confirmed cases, which could also be because it’s right next to the Mexican border. However, as Mexico City resumed its regular activity and classes were re-opened, the US confirmed more cases and the flu appeared in new countries. As Mexico goes back to its regular way of life, Colombia received two days ago the news of its first confirmed death, and Japan confirmed the virus was in Tokyo, coming from girls who were in New York for an MUN conference. Weren’t there CNG students there as well?

Changes...

MacBeth Scene

Our MacBeth scenes were more fun than I thought they would be, and although we had some mistakes, I think they turned out pretty good. At least they made us and the other class laugh at ourselves, and understand more deeply MacBeth, because we can say we were in the play. I had Malcolm's role at the ending scene, which earned me one of the longest speeches in the play, and although I tried hardly to memorize them, I forgot it all at the play since I was nervous, and I must admit that maybe I needed more practice. Our adaptation was supposed to be the Puente de Boyaca battle, and I'm not sure if everyone got it, but at least our costumes were kind of good, I'm not sure how the adaptation worked. I laughed a lot afterwards at myself, because I had written down part of my lines just in case I forgot them in the palm of my hand, and when I forgot them and glanced at my hand, the ink had spread all over my hand and I could no longer read anything. My team was fun, since even though we were not very organized and forced Ana to control us all every so often, we had fun doing it and planning it, or at least I did. I liked this activity, but because of how nervous I got, I'm not sure if I would like to do it again for now.

Swift's Changes

First of all, I must say that I sort of feel bad about my past blog because of what I read in this chapter...I had said that he doesn't describe the Lilliputian culture and ways of living, and this entire chapter explains how this weird kingdom lives. However it explains it with the absurdity of always. Their ways of living are "weird" because they don't match ours, but I think that Swift is trying to show how he thinks European countries should handle their laws and cultures. Maybe that's why he directs our attention to characteristic of these weird cultures that at first seem unimportant or weird, and doesn't talk much about things that we consider more normal and worth more talking. Gulliver may represent Swift, and his time spent in Lilliput makes a lot of changes, just like Swift wants to change the culture and the way of living, as well as the laws of Europe using that text. Swift mocks a lot of stuff from the European culture, or mankind in general. But he also suggests lots of changes, and I think what he wants is to promote those changes using his books, just like Gulliver's Travels.

Ridiculous to me but not to Swift

The more I read, the more ridiculous the book seems. Not because it's bad, but because Gulliver speaks in a very weird way. He exaggerates the events that don't deserve exaggeration, and speaks little of events that deserve further explanations. When he speaks about the war, he speaks as if it was long and terrible, even though it's a war started because of how to crack an egg open. Meanwhile, when he speaks about his invasions to the Blefuscudian port (which solved the massive war between the two countries) he says that he just walked over there and left carrying the whole fleet of ships. Of some interesting stuff, like the Blefuscudian and Lilliputan cultures, he just says that he "Won't trouble the reader with that", assuming that the reader is not very interested in that. I would've liked to hear more about the cultures of those countries, but yet he manages to keep going with the story without mentioning some important parts. (At least important if we want to read about the actual story, but maybe these events are not important to Swft, the writer, perhaps Swift doesn't intend us to see the actual story, but what the story signifies). Even though it appears at first as if he is leaving out very important parts of the novel, we can begin to see the events to which he is directing us to, the ones that he really cares about. He cares about the events that seem less important.

Absurd Wars

To my understanding, the incredibly long and terrible war between Lilliput and Blefuscu started because a Lilliputan king cut his finger when he opened an egg in a certain way, and Blefuscans say that the correct way to open an egg is the way in which the king of Lilliput cut himself. If I indeed understood correctly, this is most likely one of the most ridiculous wars I have ever heard of. It reminds me of world war one, which was caused only by nationalism, which can also be called rivalry between countries. The incident that ignited the tension that spread across Europe in the 1910's was very stupid, just like the war between Lilliput and Blefuscu. The war started between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, because an importan Austria-Hungarian was murdered in Sarajevo. That didn't even have any relationship with the Serbian government, but the tension was so big that this was enough. Just like the Lilliputan king's accident with the egg, it was absurd, and absurdity is one of satire's elements, which begins to show us how Gulliver's Travels can be a satirical novel. I'm not sure what the author's mocking with this. Probably he's just mocking human wars, because I'm sure there were stupid wars before world war one, at the time when Gulliver's Travels was written, since war itself is stupid.

Lilliput and Europe...not as different.

I think this story is a little fake, and this sound extremely dumb when you're talking about a story concerning 6-inch tall people who live in an island on the south atlantic, but the culture of the Lilliputans is almost exactly the same as the Europeans' culturfe even though they haven't ever had contact with any other civilization except for maybe the mentioned island of Blefuscu, so basically the only thing that differs between Gulliver and the Lilliputans is their height and their language, because they use European-style clothes, as described in the text, as well as horses to carry their carriages, (tiny horses, but horses ), even though horses come from Europe. The king's ruling system also seems to resemble Europe's monarchies, especially Great Britain's, since they have one of the oldest monarchies in the world. So, it's almost impossible to develop an almost identical culture without having had contact with it ever. This may be a message from the author saying that perhaps we don't defer as much as we think we do, but I don't think so. I think the author's just under great influence from Great Britain's culture, so he's incapable of imagining a different culture, or he's trying to tell us something or mock something, but I can't find what it is.

Scared? Really?

As I read the first part of Gulliver's travels I noticed that it all goes on pretty fast, and the description is very simple, but what surprised me most and almost made me laugh, was how little enthusiastic Gulliver is with his descriptions of the Liliputians. There is no use of exclamation marks at all, which would've helped give emotion to the reading. He says it as if it was absolutely normal to encounter a whole country of six-inch tall people, which to me is funny.
"I was so completely thrilled and amused."...Really? If at least he used more exclamation marks or described his "amusement" more, then maybe the reader would think he really was amused, but a description like that is not very convincing. I'm not sure what the author means with that structure, but maybe he's trying to tell us that we are not sufficiently excited with our discoveries, and that we should enjoy them more, or is it irony? Saying that he's completely excited in the least exciting way possible?

Obama's Challenge

After I read The Economy is Still at the Brink, an op-ed article written by a couple of ex-workers of Wall Street (Sandy Lewis and William Cohen), I realized that even though the United States and world's financial crisis is not because of Obama's financial policies, he faces the challenge of being forced to restore the economy to how it was before he became president, because otherwise his name will be remembered as the president who crashed the US's economy. That's just about everything the American people are expecting him to do with his presidential period, and if he doesn't manage to do it, the once extremely popular president may be stigmatized as one of the worst presidents in history, not because he really is bad, but because he happened to have the misfortune of ruling during this period of time, just like George Bush had the misfortune of ruling during the World Trade Center attacks, which forced him to invade Iraq and earned him an image of a "war-hungry" president. Obama has clearly shown the world that his economic policies to get the United States out of the crisis are working up to now, but some people, like Lewis and Cohen, are still saying that he's doing a bad job, even though the stock market has still stabilized. I think and have heard that the worst part of the crisis has already passed, and that now it's just going to get better, and although I do not think that Obama will be able to completely fix this mess in four years only, I think he will give the economy the push to recovery so that it will fullfill its recovery after Obama's ruling period. Although he faces a huge challenge, he could also be remembered as the president who saved the US from the 2008's great recession. As they say, "A crisis can also be the moment of greatest opportunity".

The Red Balloon

The red balloon must be extremely symbolic, and it’s clearly very abstract. You can interpret it in many different ways. The red balloon is in the center of the picture, making it the most important. It is also accompanied by a very light background, which makes it different to the rest of the figures, and it’s the only figure in the picture that does not use straight lines, along with a tree to the left border of the picture, or at least what seems to be a tree. If it weren’t for the balloon and the “tree”, the painting would almost have no sense, which is interesting, because the only two different figures are the only two that actually have some significance, or at least an obvious significance. Thanks to the balloon and the tree, what I see in the painting is a city, built over a hill and with a red balloon hovering over it. But the red balloon and the tree are not everything, also at first impression they appear to be. At the right, a series of squares of different sizes and colors are stacked over each other but in a very interesting way, because only their corners touch each other, making them seem as if they were excluding each other. So what we see is a series of unrelated objects making a single picture, and a picture that actually makes sense, even though all the elements in it have absolutely no relation with the rest, which may signify that everything we do, or everything that is, has an affect over the rest of the world, and the rest of the universe.

Judas?

Although this is not the famous "The last supper" by Leonardo daVinci, it's some other piece by another artist, although I was unable to found the artist's name. All the peoplein the picture look bored, although it may just be sadness, because Jesus is informing them that he will soon die. However, Jesus is standing taller than them all, and his face doesn't show sadness at all. His height symbolizes higher power than all of them, however there is a man who draws more attention than Jesus himself, since he is right at the middle of the table, and is not looking anywhere but at the floor. Meanwhile jesus is pointing at this strange man with his hand, and although at first sight everyone's sight is apparently directed at Jesus, if you stare closer enough, the sights are actually pointed at this strange man. Jesus is the only one looking towards the viewer, making him seem as if he is the only one who knows that he is being watched. He knows what is happening, and this symbolizes that at that time he was also the only one who knew what was really happening and what would happen. All the other men appear to be staring with suspicion at the strange man, who can be Judas perhaps, and therefore, they were all suspecting of him, but only Jesus knows that he was the one that would betray him.

A better future?

The end of the book is very symbolic. Throughout the whole novel, Willhelm sort of feels suffocated and trapped. The author even makes you feel sort of trapped yourself, and i felt a lot of pity for Willhelm many times. Willhelm sort of drowns after learning that he has no support from his wife, has no relationship with his kids or with his father, and has absolutely no money. He also misses his lost love with Olive. As he begins torealize that he is sort of hopeless and that he really needs to start again, he even has difficulty breathing, and starts to drown. Then, the river of people carries him along and takes him to an unknown person's funeral, and he starts weeping even though he never knew the person. The riverof people represents all his burdens, and he is drowning in those burdens, and those burdens lead him to realize that he feels completely alone, as if he were dead, and it's then when he begins to weep even though he doesn't know the guy who's being wept. This is sort of the explosion of all the burdens he has throughout the book. The book begins by introducing all the probloems Willhelm has and it ends by them getting even worse, but with Willhelm realizing that he needs a new beginning. You just hope that Willhelm's future will get better, because it apparently can't get any worse. It would be fun if the author showed this future.

Vanished

It is sad how people fall for traps that guarantee easy money. I am sure that we'd probably all fall if we actually were convinced that it would work. Willhelm fell because he liked Tamkin, although he didn't quite trust him. It is also sad how there are people who are willing to steal somebody else's money so that they can do whatever they want to. It reminds me of DMG, which appeared to work for a while, and then it was closed by the government because of other pyramid-like systems that had scammed people out of their money in other parts of the country, like Putumayo. People would hand in all their money (Including their sold homes and cars) because they thought that they would win easy money, but then the next day, they would go to claim their money doubled and they would find messages saying things like "Las únicas piramides que no se van son las de Egipto", or "Feliz Navidad", since this all happened around christmas. Then no one would be there, and the savings of years, especially the savings of poor people would've vanished. It is incredible that someone is mean enough to dothis, but mostly, it's the perople's fault because they thought that easy money would just come like that, and president Uribe said later "Easy money dissapears as easily as it came". That's why, although I feel pity for Willhelm, I think it was in part his own fault.

Willhelm's mysterious past

Past events leave a permanent mark on all of us. Absoulutely everything. Even things we don't remember. This book takes place in very little time, but if there's something that we can realize quickly is that Willhelm had a happy past life, and he lost it because of some stupid mistake. He's notproud of his life, but he does talk about some woman named Margaret all the time and about his kids. It would be interesting if the story of Willhelm's past was told, however it's also interesting to imagine what happened. They got divorced, which is obvious, but why? And why did Willhelm go to NYC after the divorce instead of at least staying in the same city as his children's? He does miss them a lot, so I don't understand why he left them. Willhelm's father tells him earlier that he gives too much money to the kids, but we don't know that, since we don't know how the kids live, We don't even know how many kids he has and what ages they have, and we don't know if they're boys or girls. The story is about Willhelm, but his past should be mentioned as well, and it isn't, as if the author was trying to tell us that Willhelm is trying to forget about his past.

Willhelm in 2009 Wall Street

Who knows if Willhelm would still be as excited as he appears if he was living right now, in the middle of the financial crisis in the United States, and in the whole world. This market can be a money-making machine, but it can also drain your money away. Since my father works in the Citigroup, we've felt the crisis at home. My father was left in charge of an amount of work that is usually done by five people, and his salary was cut off. My uncle invested in Citigroup stocks when they where costing about 30 dollars. Now they're in 4 dollars, and they where in 97 cents for about a week. However, as my father says, big crisis hold the greatest opportunities. Imagine if you bought 100 stocks at 97 cents and then resold them for 54 dollars (The highest citigroup stock value in history.) You would win about 5300 dollars! But then imagine if you bought 1000 stocks for 97 cents, which is 970 dollars, and then the government decided to nationalize the bank. Then you’d lose all your money. So yes, this book was written just after world war two, when the economy was not very good but it was fine. I wonder what would’ve happened if it was written now. Would Willhelm still be dreaming about the stock market?

1970 Colombian

The relationship between Willhelm and his father is a very sad one. However, I think it is not the worst father-son relationship I have heard of. Unfortunately, here in Colombia, especially some years ago, men were forced to study the same career as that of his father, even if he didn't like it.
"What? I'm not going to have a chef under my roof! You must stay in the family business and be a lawyer, like me and your grandfather and your great-grandfather."This was a very common line,according to my father and his friends. Sometimes they actually wanted to stay in the family business, but most of them didn't, and where forced to. This was how it worked some years ago here in Colombia, and I think Willhelm's father is very much like that. Maybe the same movement that took place here in 70's took place in the US back in the 40's, but maybe it never happened and Willhelm's father just behaves like a 1970 Colombian father. My father's father died before my father went to college, so he didn't live that with his father, however when he told my uncle, who is 14 years older than him, that he wanted to be an architect, he found the following reply:
"Which architect do you know in the family?"
So my father had to quit architecture and now is an economist, which is a profession he likes a lot, but maybe he would've liked architecture more. It's sad that parents expected their children to live the exact same way they did. Nowadays you're allowed to choose your own life without your parents expecting you to live like they did. It's great that we've left behind that selfish culture.

Impressions

In chapter two of Seize the Day, we can see how important it is to take care on what we do or in how we speak. In this chapter not much really happens, except a talk between Tommy and his father. At first, since Tommy talks a lot about his thoughts, I thought he was a little exaggerated. But, after some thinking, I realized that most of us (If not all), have similar thoughts as we speak. Any thing the other one does or doesn't do can cause false impressions on us, and we can maybe even not notice. Our movements (Body Language), can annoy other people, and since most people don't tell you "Hey, that annoys me.", you have to be very careful on what you do.
"Why the devil can't he stand still when we're talking? He's either hoisting his pants up and down by the pockets or jittering with his feet".(p24) I can tell that the poor guy he's talking to is not really intending to do that in order to annoy him, and yet Willhelm doesn't tell him anything. I always tell my friends when they're doing something weird by accident, and they tell me. I think this helps us get better at talking. I don't like the fact that Willhelm criticizes but doesn't really tell the person. Also, it'snot just body language, but misinterpretations. Some days ago, a friend of my father's asked me if I knew her son,who is in 12th grade and is famous for being extremely smart. I said "Yeah, I know he's really smart, and he's not even in my grade." She then asked "Oh really? Your grade is full of smart people?", which was not what I intended to say. I intended to say that he's famous for being smart even in other grades. It was a misinterpretation, and even though she wasn't really mad becuase of my comment I felt ashamed. Willhelm makes a lot of misinterpretations, or he just over-analyzes everything people tell him. He tries to look for insinuations, or hidden meanings in phrases that don't have them. Not everyone is as extreme as Willhelm, but we have all made misinterpretations at least once in our lifes. This teaches us to be careful about our word choice, because if we aren't, we might be taken in the wrong way and this could lead to consequences we don't want to deal with.

Willhelm and Buendia

Willhelm is at an age where it's hard to change who you are. Yet he still thinks that he can change his life, and is dreaming about becoming rich with the stock market. He still thinks that there's a way to change his life completely, and it is sad to see the situation that he is in. His father seems to be very dissapointed at him, at how his life is so empty. I don't like his father, but I don't like Willhelm either. Their lifes are very sad, not just Willhelms, but his father's also. Their way of living sort of reminds me of 100 years of solitude, which I am reading right now. Both the characters in Seize the Day and in 100 years of solitude have attitudes towards life that seem to be as if they didn't like their lifes, which doesn't surprise me. Both are trying to become people they are not, and trying to change the world and their own way of living in unimaginable ways. Not only that, but they actually try to do it, and they could, I've always believed that you can do anything, but they sort of know deep down that some things are almost impossible to accomplish, and when they bump against a wall they get really discouraged and wait a long time before triying again. I think Willhelm and his father are very similar to many of the Buendia family members.

Wilham and My father

I feell like Wilhelm is trying to convince himself that he is still young, or at least younger than what he is, because he behaves as if he had just turned twenty. He cares a lot about his appearance and is still dreaming with becoming millionaire. He also emphasizes a lot, or at least the author does, that he is much younger than any other men at the hotel where he is staying. Honestly he reminds me of my father four or five years ago, and even now. He was trying to feel younger (At least that's what I think), becaue he had just turned forty, which is known to be a hard age both in men and women. We were living in Mexico City back then, because of my father's job, and had a car that could take my parents, my two brothers, and me. However he decided to change it for a sporting car, which is cool but not as useful. He decided to buy kayaks and gorafting, and he was invited by a much younger colleague to participate in a regatta from Acapulco to Ixtapa, Mexico. (And I'm talking 15 years younger than him). He also started dressing differently and traveling to places here in Colombia such as La Guajira with my 27 year-old cousin, who was like 22 back then. At times he even tarted mocking my mom, as if she was his mom instead of his wife. It was funny, both for me and my brothers as well as my mother, but at times my mom would get mad. However when we look back at that time we laugh a lot. Wilham reminds me of my father.

Seize the Day

The first thing that attracted my attention of this novel was the title. "Seize the day" was a phrase that I had heard before, although I wasn't too sure where. After mentioning the novel's title to another friend I was remembered of the Dead Poet's Society, which is a movie that we watch an unnatural amount of times here at school, but that is very good over all. It teaches you to enjoy life and be yourself, instead of being someone you really aren't just to please somebody else. I have always liked the philosophy of enjoying life, which of course doesn't mean that you shouldn't work hard and make sacrifices during your lifetime, but it does mean that you should be careful in not working too hard just to fit in society even if you have to do things that you don't really want to do. Unfortunately some people I know, including some friends of mine sometimes care too much about what other people think about them, and they make a huge effort to "fit in" even if they really don't fit in in that specific group. With this book's title I have very high expectations already, and its only the title.

The Delicate Balance of a Novel

Henry VIII was one of England's most powerful monarchs. His reign included periods of peace and of terrible wars. One of his most memorable characteristics was his insistance in allowing divorce and re-marrying several times. Henry is a very fascinating historical character, and it is popular to write about these fascinating figures, but there is one sligh problem. Henry Tudor was a monarch. How do you write about a monarch's life and at the same time try to exlude the history of his country? In Cheese and Flutes, a book review by Steven Gunn, two biographies are compared. The first one is called Henry VIII, and it was written by Lucy Wooding. It is a biography that explores the whole reign, and starts a debate with Henry the eight's works of the last few decades. It is her who faces the challenge of knowing how much history of the reign should the biography include. The second book is Henry, The Virtuous Prince which concentrates more in the early life of the king. Both kings give us a complete portrait into the king's life according to Gunn. However, the fact that one is about the whole reign and the other one only about the early life seems like an excuse placed by Starkley to avoid having to talk about the reign. Therefore making Wooding's book slightly better. However, he also says that Starkley talks more about the details, which sometimes are so insignificant that they seem useless. This may take Starkley's book to a greater level than Wooding's, but it may also lower its score because he adds details that are not important. Gunn seems to be giving more preferance to Wooding, but he is really explaining the delicate balance that a book must have in order to be good. You cannot exceed in anything and you cannot lack it either. The extra challenge added by Wooding gives her more points, but the deeper content Starkley has gives him points to compensate for his lack of real challenges. I begin to understand how delicate that balance is, and how important it is to find the maximum points of all the aspects of the book.

Two sides of the selfish gene

When I began The Selfish Gene I started thinking that Dawkins was crazy and that his vision was too negative. I still do but at times I find myself thinking that we humans are extremely selfish beings. Before I found one activity in which we were not selfish, which was how parents took care for their kids. Dawkins defines this as altruistic, which for me is just another way of saying "selfish". Do parents really take care of their kids because they love them or because they have to in order to preserve their genes? I think it's a mix of both. I do not doubt for an instant that love exists, but I'm sure parents take care of us because they have to as well. So in part, even with the concept which I thought was selfish-free, we actually are selfish, which is dissapointing. Another concept which I thought was selfish-free was teamwork, but do we really use teamwork to help each other or just to take as much advantage of the others as possible? For example, I was given an example by a friend the other day: When ancient humans lived, the men would go out to hunt while the women stayed with the children, and men would go hunting in groups to "help each other", but if you think about it, it's because they knew it was too dangerous to go out hunting alone. In other words, they knew that if there were 20 men it was less likely that they were killed, since they had a 1/20 chance of being killed if something happened, therefore they were just taking advantage of the others, and at the same time helping each other, because the more men, the less chances they had of being killed. It is because of this that I can conclude that men are both altruistic and selfish, but I would say unfortunately mostly selfish.

Human Pride

Although as I read The Selfish Gene I feel a little more and more selfish every time, I think that the human species is good in some things too. I have undoubtedly found much more selfish behaviors than altruistic behaviors in our species. However, in this chapter we are mentioned some things about The Battle of Sexes. Not only on animal species but on our own specie as well. Humans must be the specie with the best division of papers. However, women still seem to have a more important paper in our existance than men. They usually take care of children, although not always. They also take care of most of their education (usually), and even though we could say that it's men who do the working, this is in many cases not true. Many mothers work as well, and they dedicate to their children anyways. However, in the hardest parts of child raise mothers usually quit their jobs to be able to dedicate better to their kids. Even with this behavior, which indicates that women are more "Important", the papers are very well distributed, because mostly in the animal kingdom (excluding humans, of course), fathers abandon their offsprings even before they are born, knowing that the mother will take care of the baby because that is what her instinct tells her. She will not allow the baby to die because it carries part of her genes as well, and the male knows that, so he takes advantage. The thing is, fathers can just leave because it's the women who carry the baby before it is born. The mother can't get rid of the baby until after it is born, unless she aborts, which is something only human females do voluntarily. In the human world, although this still happens, it is much less common, and almost always the kids are distributed equally between both parents. Even when the male leaves the female or viceversa, their relationship to the son or daughter remains the same. Divorced parents may hate each other but their relation towards their offsprings almost always remains the same. That's why I think human behavior is best, although probably I would think peacock behavior was best if I was one.

$uper Partner$

In modern world, there is a lot of competition between people to obtain the largest benefits of life. However, much is determined by our backgrounds, just like in animals' lifes. Mainly and sadly however, money has becomed one of the most important characteristics of our backgrounds, if not the most important. If we have money we can guarantee food, education, health (Partly), and sometimes even a partner. I am not only talking about gold-diggers though. It was proven by scientists that a human male's sex appeal is highly increased when his income is increased, and it is the same with female humans. What an indiviudual is looking for in a partner is that she or he can guarantee the looker's offsprings' well-being. In the case of animals, they are looking for strong, fast and attractive partners, who can pass those genes to the looker's offsprings. In the case of humans, you must add money to these characteristics, because in the human world money can guarantee a high percentage of well-beings in life. Therefore, unconsciously, we're all gold diggers, and this is a proven fact, which is sad.

Overpopulation

Overpopulation may be a product of our own selfish interests. Humans want to have as many descendants as they can, no matter the cost. According to Dawkins however, when a country becomes overcrowded, the rate of population growth should drop because of our genes. Females drop their fertility rates when they notice lack of resources. That has been proven with science experiments. However, in the present world I see the opposite. Rich countries, where the standard of living is high, such as European countries are suffering from lack of population, to a point in which governments are having to give rewards to people who have kids. Instead, in countries like China and India, which are countries that have a lot less income per person, overpopulation is a big problem, so big that governments have to reward people who don't have any kids. It could be a cultural thing, but then you have the case of Japan, which has almost worst lack of population problems than Europe. So the real life cases apparently contradict Dawkins's theory. But then there's the cost of living in Europe and in Japan, versus the cost of living in China or India. Since in general, European countries are richer than China or India, the living cost is also way higher, as well as in Japan. Tokyo has been officially labeled as the most expensive city to live in in the whole world, and after NYC, European cities like London, Paris and Frankfurt follow. Therefore, we can see a little of selfishness there, which could explain overpopulation and relates with Dawkins's theory. Or not preciselly selfishness, but these people have no kids because its too expensive to mantain them. They will rather have a good life without kids than pass their genes, even though that goes against their own genes. But the selfishness could be seen when we talk about countries. Lack of population does bad to countries, as well as overpopulation. But people in Europe prefer to live a good life and leave the task of developing the country's population to others, while Chinese and Indians prefer to pass on their genes, and force the others not to pass them on so that the country can improve. This is an example of the selfish gene.

Passing of Ideas

Albinism is one of the topic Dawkins discusses in the sixth chapter of “The selfish gene”. How is it that albinism survives when it has been proven to be so inefficient? It’s simple. Albinism is a rare mutation present only in one out of every 20,000 people, but it is a disease that rarely kills, and it doesn’t affect all of its carriers. Therefore, the chances of having an albino baby are extremely slim, but always present. You can only have an albino baby if both you and your couple carry the gene, which is extremely difficult. However, all descendants are carriers, and just because the albino person doesn’t later have kids it doesn’t mean the chain is broken, because the person’s brother, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, will all carry the gene, but it’ll only be activated if they have a baby with another person who comes from an albino family. So the chances are extremely small to have an albino baby, but they are just as small as to the disease of albinism becoming extinct. Instead, if there was a dominant disease which killed its carriers, it would become extinct in its first appearance, because it would not get passed on. In the book Dawkins talks about albinos being attracted to other albinos so that the gene would be passed on, however, this is not true, and he admits that this doesn’t happen even though it would help the albino genes. I think the same happens with human ideas. If they don’t get passed on, because they are not “dominant”, then they will die in their first appearance, instead, if they manage to get passed on to the others they will live and be prosperous, even if they’re not dominant. Also, the fact that two people share ideas doesn’t mean that they should be attracted to each other, although in the real world I think they would. Maybe some ideas come with genes. Maybe that’s why people say “Look, that baby is just like his father, he’s always jumping around”. I don’t think that the “jumping around” gene exist, although it maybe does. Also, it could just be that the kid is trying to imitate his father, although I have heard this expression with babies whose parents are dead. And also, it could just be a coincidence, but I think these things also get passed on, and that the theory of Gregory Mendel doesn’t only work with genes, but with other things, such as ideas as well.

Humans in the Animal Kingdom

We are selfish beings. I never thought so before reading the selfish gene, I thought we just had selfish moments, but in general, apparently we are selfish. We compete for everything, especially in our capitalist environments. Although we do share, we share with the people who we appreciate, but if a stranger comes and asks for something we might give him something, but not at all what he needs. For example, if we are asked for a couple of coins at the street we happily give them away, but what if that same person who asks for a couple of coins asked us for a couple million pesos? Would we give them to him? I personally wouldn’t. I don’t know the person well enough, and maybe we’d say “If I could afford it of course I would.” Yet we can afford things that are far more expensive than that and we couldn’t give 2 million pesos to a stranger. Then there are other people who give millions of dollars to the poor, but those are the people who make billions of dollars, to whom a couple thousand dollars mean the same as a couple of coins do to us. We also afford thousands of dollars to get our kids in college, because we want our genes to be best. We are competing with the rest of the population and we want our kids to be better than the rest, even if that means we won’t treat others well. Just as lions compete with gazelles we compete with cows, and pigs, and lambs etc. We kill them and eat them for our own benefit. However we don’t kill and eat other humans because this is a greater risk. A human would be harder to kill than a cow, and if you killed a human you would be punished severely, especially if you ate it afterwards…But if you killed a cow then it would mean nothing to the other humans. Perhaps maybe they’d want a part of the cow too, but nothing else. It surprises me how similar we are to the rest of the animal kingdom, but then, we are part of it as well, so it’s natural, although still surprising.

The Chess Programer

In chapter 4 of "The Selfish Gene", Richard Dawkins talks about a chess programmer, which is the person who programs a computer so that you are able to play chess. The programmer, says Dawkins, is like a father teaching a son how to play chess. The computer cannot play chess better than the programmer, but it can beat the programmer anyways. Until now, computers are still incapable of beating humans, but this is because the machine does not have the intelligence level to go against humans. Maybe the machine knows how to play chess better, and knows how to distinguish between a loss and a win, but it won't feel sad about the loss or happy about the win. It will feel nothing and think nothing. A human would think "I'm better than him/ her at chess", but the machine has no such thought and therefore, since the programmer made the computer, then he will always be superior, or at least that’s the concept we humans have. However, just like a son, a computer could one day break free. If we take a look at humans, we can see that just because a father educated his son or daughter, it doesn’t mean that he/ she will always depend on the father. Eventually, the son or daughter will match his or her parent, and maybe even surpass them. Then why is it that we still think that a computer is not the same? For me it’s simple. The computer and the human will never be the same, and even if the computer’s artificial intelligence was greater than that of any human, I don’t think that they would take over the world or anything like that, as mentioned in Dawkins’s example. Humans have feeling, and feelings guide us through life. No artificial intelligence could give feelings to a machine, and if they could, they’d be empty feelings, which wouldn’t affect the machine’s decisions. Feelings are what differ machines from humans.

Natural Selection

Naturally, we always prefer whatever is best for us, and nature does also. Nature's duty here on Earth is to create a balance in everything so that every species can do its own duty. If you take off one of the millions of species of animals on Earth, you'll mess up the entire planet. That's why extinction is so dangerous not only for whatever is getting extinct, but for us as well. In the third chapter of the selfish gene, we are introduced to Gregory Mendel's theory. Gregory Mendel experimented with plants to find out more about dominant and recessive alleles. In this experiment, Mendel planted purple and white flowers, which he knew had no different-colored ancestors. The white allele was a recessive allele, while the purple allele was a dominant one. After Mendel planted the flowers, he crossed the white flowers with the purple ones, and the result were lots of 100% purple flowers, not a trace of white ones. This was because the purple allele was dominant, so even the flowers that had the white allele in their DNA were purple because the purple beat the white. However, when Mendel allowed the plants to reproduce, he found that about ¼ of the plants were white, because some plants had inherited the white gene from both their parents, even though both their parents had also a purple gene and therefore were purple. The diagram above can explain Mendel’s experiment if you switch the blue eyes for white flowers and the brown eyes for purple flowers. This experiment demonstrated how nature creates a balance in everything. If one of the genes is brown then the body will receive the order to produce the protein that makes eyes brown. Otherwise, it won’t, and the eyes will remain colorless (blue). Is this the idea of a selfish gene? Or is it just nature’s effort to create a balance? Out of four alleles, only one was brown, but because of it the person will have brown eyes. In other words, the brown allele is “better” than all the rest, making it selfish, since it doesn’t care about what the other 3 blue alleles say. On the other hand, this brown allele could be nature’s effort to create balance. Since there’s only one brown allele and 3 blue ones, then naturally the brown one should be granted more power to compensate the lack of other brown alleles. However, what if there were 3 brown alleles and one blue allele? The brown alleles would beat the blue one by far, and whoever inherited those genes could just forget about having blue eyes. Therefore, the brown one has more power, but why? Maybe it has some scientific reason, just like dark skin. It is proven that dark skin was a result of evolution in Africa because it is much more resistant to the sun. Maybe having brown eyes has its advantages, and that’s why nature made it more powerful.

Beneficial Mistakes

Mistakes are always present. They're present in our everyday lifes and they will be present always. However, the word "mistake" is often related with something bad. It's not necessarily bad. Evolution is a chain of mistakes that lead the species to become better. Evolution works by mutations, which are mistakes in the DNA of the individuals. For example, let's just imagine that for some odd reason, a sloth was born with wings. This would enable the sloth to get food from the trees more easily. It would also help it survive predators, and maybe even get a better partner. Therefore, this sloth would pass its odd winged DNA to its kids, and these kids would pass their own DNA and so on, until winged sloths would be much stronger than regular sloths and they would leave the regular sloths with no partners, so eventually the regular sloths would become extinct and sloths would evolve to have wings. All because one sloth was born a mutant. This can relate to us and to our minds. Let's just imagine that someone comes up with a different idea than the rest, and this idea was fairly interesting. This idea would be passed on to the other readers and then eventually most of the people would share the idea. Take a religion for example, if the religion is believeable and satisfying, then it will become stronger and stronger. Instead, if the idea is not too good, the person who came up with the idea will be excluded from the general group, preventing the idea from entering society's mind. We learn from our mistakes, even though sometimes they can hurt a lot and give little knowledge.

The Law of Life

"Abide by whatever task is set before you as if it were a law, and as if you would be committing sacrilege if you went against it. But pay no attention to whatever anyone says about you, since that falls outside what is yours."
-Handbook of Epictetus
If we lived that way, our quality of life would improve. I'm sure of it, because if you made all the effort you could for certain tasks, we would perform greatly in all areas. People with special talents would perform almost unnaturally well, and science and technology would improve a lot. However, we need a motivation to make our biggest effort. Sometimes we have it, but most of the time we don't have enough motivation to make our BIGGEST effort. I don't think anyone has ever done his or her BIGGEST effort in something, unless he or she does it instinctively, like for example, a mother trying to save her child. In Slaughterhouse Five, for example, I think Billy Pilgrim lacks motivation greatly, since he knows that no matter what he does, life will always be the same, and that there's no point in actually making an effort. For example, when Valencia tells him she's going on a diet, he reacts by telling her that its useless because anyways they will live happily married. He tells her not to make the effort because its not worth it, so she never really gets on a diet. I don't understand how Billy Pilgrim had such a great life and did so well if he didn't really care about what he did. However, according to Billy, life is written, so maybe his life was just written that way. I personally think that's not right, and I think that we should always look for some kind of motivation, like imagining that your task is sacred, so that we can make the best effort possible, even though it can be difficult sometimes.

Are we altruistic?

In my opinion, we may be some of the least altruistic beings in the planet. Since we are "smarter", we know when we're taking risks and when we're not, while animals just do things by instincs, or at least some animals, like bees. Richard Dawkins places the bee as the most altruistic being in the planet, but the bee really does the stinging as self-defense and in defense of the colony, but by instinct only. The bee doesn't really know it will die, and it doesn't know that it is going to help the colony with its sting. Its brains tells it "Do it", and the bee will proceed to do it. Instead, since we have reason, we know when we might be taking risks, and when we're being "heroic".In movies, we see men being "Heroic" all the time, but is dying for someone else really "Heroic"? When someone we really love dies, we will suffer, and sometimes we are willing to give our lifes so that the other person lives. I am sure that if a mother was given a choice, she would rather die than see her kids dying, but I cannot be sure if it is really for love or just because she wants to transfer the suffering of seeing a loved one to the kids. You don't suffer if you die. People who love you are really the ones who suffer. The mother might be thinking deep inside:"Well, I won't see my kids dying so I won't suffer, and I won't suffer if I die either. Instead, my kids will see me dying and suffer, and they will have to carry with that burden all their life". Which is better for the mother? Of course the mother most likely doesn't think of it that way but she's avoiding her suffering by causing suffering to her kids or her loved ones. This is a rather disturbing thought, but it may be real. Instead, we can see people in situations (like war, for example) in which they fight to defend their country (or colony). In this scenario, they are putting the interests of the country before their own self-interests, causing less suffering to the whole country. Of course we could also think of it in the other way. They may be avoiding the tragedy of seeing their families die by avoiding the threat of war to get to them. They could be avoiding their own suffering. Therefore, although I think humanity can be altruistic sometimes, in general I think it is not very common. People actually try to place their families before them, but only because they want to avoid the suffering it would cause to see them in danger or harmed.

Friendship:The anti-nightmares.

“You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends, And how, how rare and strange it is, to find. In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,
To find a friend who has these qualities, Who has, and gives.Those qualities upon which friendship lives. How much it means that I say this to you—Without these friendships—life, what cauchemar!” (19-28).

That's a piece I found in the reading, and a piece I read over and over again. Partly because it attracted my attention and partly because it was one of the little things I understood. It's a piece describing the importance of friendship, which is one of the most valuabe things someboody can have. Without friendship life would be much harder. Friendship is a very difficult word to define, yet everyone knows it's meaning because it's such and important part of life. Friendship is not something you learn in school, and the author is saying that it is hard to find a true friend, which is true in my opinion because you might think you have a true friend, but you won't ever prove it until you're in a difficult situation. While you're in a good situation a friend may be with you but when you go through a bad moment they may abandon you. I know this, I have seen it. It has been done to me and I have seen people do it to others, I must've have done it as well, but the author is saying that once you get friendship, then you can be happy. For the author, the most important quality of friendship is to have and to give. These qualities are important, especially the giving part. If you have kindness, honesty and trustworthiness then you can be a great friend, but you also need to give a part of you to the people who consider you your friend. Friendships need both people to put some effort in the relation, just as love does. The last sentence is "What a cauchemar!", but after asking a friend what cauchemar meant I found the meaning of the sentence. "Cauchemar" is the french word for "Nightmare". Therefore, for the author, life without friendship is a nightmare. I am in complete agreement with that. Love is some kind of friendship, as well as family. Therefore, if you had no friendship then it would mean you had no love and poor family relations if any at all. What other purpose in life is there than finding love and friendship? The purpose of life for me is to be happy, and yes, life would be a cauchemar if we had no friendship, because at least I would never be happy without it.

Close to "So it goes"

"Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen and your life will go well."-Handbook of Epictetus.
This piece of the handbook reminds me of an important aspect of Slaughter House Five. Throughout the novel, Billy recites over and over again his famous "So it goes" phrase, and we can see how he lives happily knowing what is going to happen in all his life. We could say he wants things to happen as they do happen, and therefore he lives a happy life. However it is different because Billy doesn't really want things to happen as they happen, he just thinks that he can't do anything to change them , so I guess his life is happy because he understands that all is just destiny. I agree with the handbook of Epictetus about getting the best out of life's events, but I disagree and have always disagreed with "So it goes", because I think that maybe life has destiny, but if you were able to go back in time you could still change stuff, and I think you should always change for the better. You can always change for the better since we are human and we won't ever be perfect.

Judgement and Experience

"What upsets people is not things themselves, but their judgements about the things."
This is a true statement in my opinion, but the idea is not right. In the text it says that things are not really bad, but if we judge them bad then they will seem bad to us. This part is right, but some things really are bad, therefore we judge them as bad. We see things depending on our judgements, but we judge things depending on our experiences, therefore the experiences can or cannot be bad. It's not right to say that all experiences are good in essence and that our judgements make them bad. It would be right to say that our judgements make experiences good or bad, but again, judgements are based on the experiencs themselves. We could try to get the best out of something, and then our judgements would change to make our life better but some experiences would still be better than others. For example, one day you could be attacked by a bear and try to get the best out of it. What's the best thing about being attacked by a bear? Well...you survived, you got to touch the bear, and...what else? Two moths later you get married. You can compare the experiences. You were also alive during the wedding...plus you also got a bunch of other great experiences. You took the best of both situations, but if you were asked "Which of the two moments would yo go back to?", then you would most likely go back to the day of your wedding. They were not equally nice experiences, I don't think it would be a hard decision, so both moments were not equally good in essence. You judged them depending on how good they were and then you classiffied them as good or bad depending on your judgements. That's why people are upset by the things themselves, but indirectly.

What Now?

“Poo-Tee-Weet?” say the birds when the war is over. And that’s all there is to say about war really. Once it’s over it’s over. Does “Poo-Tee-Weet?” maybe mean: “What Now?”, because when you think about it, what was the point of that war? The only answer I could think of was that that war happened to prevent war from happening. Britain and France told Germany that it would face a war if it started war, and when Germany started war then France and Britain made it bigger. However Britain and France had to declare war because otherwise Germany would’ve taken over all Europe eventually anyways, but after the war is over there might be celebration for a couple of days and then its just building the world again. Burying the dead, repairing the damages, and re-starting economy, but other than that there is nothing else to do about war. There’s nothing more to say. It’s over, people died, buildings crumbled and the world was destroyed, but there’s no winning. There’s nothing to celebrate other than the fact than destruction is stopping. What was that all about? What now?

Is Death just Fine?

Although we have seen Billy Pilgrim’s attitude of not trying to make life better, I still don’t agree with it, and when I read something as absurd as saying that the bombing in Dresden was just fine, I must admit that I don’t really like it. “It was all right. Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does. I learned that on Tralfamadore.” (p198). Once again he says that even being able to go back in time, he won’t change anything because it’s meant to be. How absurd is that?
Having the chance of saving those people’s lives, he wouldn’t do it because “It’s all right since it’s meant to be”. He could at least say that it was bad, and that it was a mistake and that it shouldn’t have happened, but he says that “It was all right”. It’s kind of a lazy attitude towards life, he’s like “Why bother in doing anything? Who cares about anything?”. I don’t know how a whole race like the Tralfamadorians can prosper with such an attitude.

The Moon-like City

Most of the times that we talk about air-raids in World War two we talk about cities like Berlin or London, which were heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe or the British Royal Air Force. But they had reasons to bomb cities like this, since they were capitals of the nations in conflict and probably centers of important industries, as well as sites where the politicians who were actually in war were residing. Germany knew that Britain was the only threat to them after France's defeat, as well as the Soviet Union and the United States. However, he had an arrangement with the Soviets and the United States were looking for peace, so after France's defeat all they had to do was destroy Britain. Therefore, London was the site of the heaviest air raids by the Luftwaffe, to the point in which the city was bombed every night, a period of time called "The Blitz". As revenge, the British bombed Berlin and other German cities. All these bombings could be considered justified, but the bombing in Dresden was not necessary, since the war was almost over and the United States knew they were going to win. What is even more surprising is that in such a little time it was devastated in such a way that the city was like the moon. It is an event in history that teaches you that war is not fair.

No Real Soldiers

When WWII is almost over, Billy and Edgar meet a woman at Dresden who wants to help the Americans. She speaks with them for a while, but among the things she tells them is that “All real soldiers are dead”. It was almost the end of the war when Dresden was bombed, and what she said was true. Even though Billy had been “prepared” to be a soldier, he was no real soldier. Actually, I don’t think most of the “soldiers” in the war were real soldiers. They were still kids, and I remember in the first chapter, when Mary O’Hare reacts so badly after she’s told about the war book. “You were just babies back then!” (p14). I think that is one of the saddest things about war. Kids pay for the mistake that politicians make when they get a country in war, and young people die because of this.

Unstuck in Time For Real

In class we’ve discussed over and over again whether or not Billy Pilgrim is unstuck in time or not. Well, the ability of traveling in time would allow you to see events from the past and events from the future. We weren’t sure if he was really traveling in time or just remembering scenes from the war and from his past life. However, while you are alive you cannot possibly remember your own death. You can only remember events in the past and death can never be in the past, because once you die, there is no more future from which you can remember, and therefore death can never be remembered. Well…Then how did Billy know that he was going to die exactly the day he died? Simple…He really is unstuck in time. In page 141, the novel says that Billy recorded in a tape the exact date of his death: “I, Billy Pilgrim, will die, have died, and always will die on February thirteenth, 1976.” So, finally I think we can conclude that Billy Pilgrim is really unstuck in time. However I am just referring to Billy Pilgrim. Not the Narrator, since we are not yet sure if they are the same, related, or not related at all.

The Structure of the Moment

Why try to prevent something from happening when it’s going to happen anyway? This is the Trelfamadorians’ attitude towards life. They consider that whatever they do, moments are going to happen anyways. I think differently, although of course I don’t have the ability to travel in time. Time-Traveling is no advantage at all if you can’t use it to change the past or even the future. Therefore, Trelfamadorians should not be more advanced than us only because they are unstuck in time since they don’t use that ability anyways. I think instead of an advantage, knowing what is going to happen is worse than not knowing at all, because at least I am sure that I don’t want to know the date of my death, and if I knew it, I would have a bitter life thinking that I am getting nearer and nearer, although I am still getting nearer and nearer, but it’s still a surprise. In chapter five, when Billy asks Trelfamadorians how to prevent war on Earth, they call him stupid because they say he shouldn’t do anything. Billy asks how the Universe ends, and the Trelfamadorians reply that a Trelfamadorian blows it up by pressing a button, and when Billy asks them why do they not prevent it they reply like this: “He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way.” In other words: “Why prevent it from happening if it’s going to happen anyways? The moment is structured that way.” Therefore, as I see it, Trelfamadorians have no will; they cannot make decisions because of their way of life. They don’t make an effort to change the future. For all I know, they could lie in a bed for all their life and their life would be exactly the same as if they actually tried to do something with it.

All Time is All Time

"All time is all time. It does not change...It simply is".
Once again, like in the "So it goes" phrase, the Tralfamadorians make another statement that is basically saying to just live, instead of thinking that once moments have passed they are gone forever. Once again, they explain Billy Pilgrim's "Let it be" attitude. In this chapter we see again how after some tragic events, like the hobo's death, the author says "So it goes." This however, doesn't mean that Billy Pilgrim is like that, since the book is written in third person, but the author never writes about Pilgrim's emotions, he just writes about what happens and moves on. I am starting to think that after the Tralfamadorian kidnapping, Pilgrim's attitude towards life changes, and that even the events that happened before the kidnapping were written after it, because the entire second novel (meaning the book after chapter one) is written with the apparently careless attitude. The Tralfamadorians are definetely very important to Pilgrim's life.

The Prayer on the Wall

"God grant me

the serenity to accept

the things I cannot change

Courage

to change the things I can,

And wisdom always

to tell the difference."(p60)

This prayer may be the piece that explains the way the book is written. Undoubtedly, the way the book is written gives you the feeling as if Billy didn't care about anything, as if life just went on and on for him, no matter what happens. In the war he never says something like "I felt bad about it." or "I felt good about that other thing." He just went on with life, or if he did feel something he didn't say. You can see again the "So it goes" phrase from time to time. For example, "There was so much to see...corpses with barefeet that were blue and ivory. So it goes."(p 65) This phrase also makes you feel as if Billy didn't care about dead people being right there, in front of him." Maybe this is because of the lesson that he learned from Tralfamadore, since they told him that nobody really dies, and that you can change the moments of your life in any way you want, but the piece above is written while Billy is at the war, so he hadn't been kidnapped by the Tralfamadorians yet, although it can be written after he was kidnapped at some time when he decided to go back to the war maybe to remember for his Dresden war book. I don't know yet.

So it Goes...

As Vonnegut starts the second chapter, as well as the second novel, he is more relaxed. I'm not sure if the story is fictional or if it's based on some of Vonnegut's real life events. He starts talking about this guy named Billy, instead in the first chapter he was talking in first person. Well, Billy has a weird ability which was taught to him by aliens from the planet of Tralfamadore. This ability allows him to kind of travel in time, although they may also be just flashbacks. But what makes the book different and almost funny is the phrase "So it goes.", which he uses a lot. What's puzzling though, is that he uses it only after events that are tragic. For example, "While Billy was recuperating in a hospital in Vermont, his wife died accidentally of carbon-monoxide poisoning. So it goes."(p 25) In a regular book, you'd sort of expect the writer to make the moment more sad or at least longer. In this book, it's sort of saying "Well, too bad. Moving on then...", so it makes it funny, but you won't laugh because he just said his wife died. "So it goes" is up to now my favorite phrase of Slaughter House Five.

A Pillar of Salt.

Kurt Vonnegut ends his first Dresden war book like this:"I've finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun. This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt." Now, I wouldn't say its a failure, but it is written as if it was sort of a journal and not a novel. I can't see much emotion in that first Dresden war book. This may be intended to be so, he's just saying how he wrote the novel, instead of really telling the novel, since he knows that it was a failure. What really caught my attention about how Vonnegut ends the novel was "The Pillar of Salt". In the Bible, when Sodom and Gommorrah are destroyed by God because they are full of sinners, the few people who are told to leave the city are also told not to turn around and look at the destruction of the city, however, some of them do look back and are turned into pillars of salt. Kurt Vonnegut says at the beginning of the first chapter (also the first novel) that he knew that writing a book about Dresden would make him rich, but when he starts, he realizes that he cannot look back to the war. First of all, he has forgotten everything, and when he turns to his friends to remember he finds that he has changed, and that his friends have changed as well because of the war. They've all turned into pillars of salt, and when he realizes it he gives up with his first book because he realizes that it was written by a pillar of salt.

The Wayuus in the Inferno

According to Dante’s Inferno, What happens to the Wayuus when they die?

The wayuus would be in the first circle (Limbo), or the circle of the Virtuous Pagans. They have another religion, and since they were never enlightened by Jesus then they cannot go into paradise, but they would not be tormented. As wayuus, they would only lose all hope of enlightment, but they would not be subjected to any kind of punishment. In this circle reside also the people who lived before the coming of Christ, such as Homer, Horace, and Lucan. Perhaps some of the wisest wayuus would be among the master souls of pagan antiquity, which are, to my understanding, the wisest of the pagans. According to Dante this is the highest rank someone can achieve without God.

"...they did not sin; and yet, though they have merits, that's not enough, because they lack baptism, the portal of the faith that you embrace." pg. 33

Blogs

Blogs:

1. What is the difference between a blog and a book?
A blog and a book differ in many ways. A book is necessarily shorter. A blog is as long or short as you need it to be. A blog can allow you to skip the stuff you’re not too interested in, while a book does not offer that privilege. Once you close the book’s cover, then that’s it. You’re done reading and too bad if you are missing some information or would like to keep researching. It’s done. Go find another book. Meanwhile, a blog gives you links; it takes you to videos, pictures and other blogs. It may offer many different points of view, and you will never stop learning. You will never stop exploring. It would take a lifetime to finish studying a topic if you’re using blogs. Each blog takes you to another blog, and then another and another. Blogs are an updated version of books.

2. How have blogs changed recently?
Well, first of all, there are more blogs than ever. Every time a new blog is created, existing blogs are updated. New information is available, new points of view are available, and more readers are available, encouraging others to create new blogs and re-starting the cycle and creating a massive endless encyclopedia that is adding new information in every single second. However, some blogs are abandoned as well, and others can exclude the readers unless they are the blogger’s friends. Private conversations can sometimes go on in blogs that were not made with that specific use, and sometimes the blogger and his/ her friends can be talking about a topic that you have no idea about.

3. Why might you read a blog?
Well, Why not? As said in the text, blogs offer more points of view, there are blogs about everything and you can skip the bits of information you don’t want to know about. Blogs are permanently growing and new information is added every few seconds. The existing information is improved every time and…it does not waste as much paper!
Meanwhile, a book can stay lying on a shelf gathering dust after you read it, leaving you curious about the topic since you just didn’t find enough information, and leaving the book and its many pages there, useless.

4. Is there reason to doubt the objectivity of a blog? Why? Why not?
Yes, there is reason to doubt the objectivity, but, that is exactly what is fascinating about blogs. You can read from many different points of view and not just from the one of the same, boring author. Anyways, you can always doubt objectivity on everything. People have feelings about stuff, so even if they try to hide those feelings to show “objectivity”, deep down we know they are not objective, so what’s the point in hiding them?

5. Identify three blogs that mention our summer reading.

http://e-cuneiform.blogspot.com/2009/01/canto-21-inferno-dante-alighieri.html

http://williamostrem.net/nl/2009/01/12/dantes-inferno/

http://mosquito-blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/white-phosphorus-in-gaza-dante-inferno.html