Recent News

Fidel Castro, the former dictator of Cuba has stepped down at 83 years old, relinquishing control to his younger brother. Perhaps this will allow for the embargo to end? I'm sure everyone would be fine with that, bring democracy to Cuba, while also gaining a new vacation spot, and legally being able to purchase Cuban Cigars?

Maximum Ride

For my independent study I read the novel Maximum Ride. This novel centered around a small group of children, all geetically engineered at birth and grafted with avian DNA, giving them wings, the ability to fly, and several other bir-like traits. These children have escaped from the "school" where they were kept and are now on the lamb, trying desperately to find a place to live, without threat of being found. The children were made this way by a group of scientists attempting to make improved humans capable of warfare on a different level, once the expirements escape the scientist release another creation know as the "erasers" to try and catch them. The erasers are humans bred with canine DNA and resemble a werewolf. They endlessly hunt the children, bloodthirsty and savage they stop at nothing to destroy every piece of these escapees. Although this novel portrays the erasers as the evil villains which seek to destroy the main characters, is it not in actuality the scientists who created both expirements who should be blamed. Is playing God an alright thing to do? The scientists treat the children with cold disregard as objects they created, and although each child has a distinct personality and consciousness, the scientists would sooner dispose of any one rather than take the trouble to care for it. Once again the human beings are responsible for the evil found in this novel, somehow pulled towards it through the course of their lifetime. By allowing themselves to be captured by the evil, they have gained many advantages, freedom of decision, large profit gains, and an escape from morals which would have previously destroyed their conscious. This pattern of evil can be found in nearly every novel with a protagonist, and in each scenario the new recruit gains in some way.

The Artist's Portrait of a Young Man

My big question related to why evil is attractive. This novel centered on this point almost continuously. Stephen is constantly driven towards the path of sin and pleasure, albeit the fact that he has been raised in religious settings all his life which condone such behavior. For some reason Stephen is unable to escape this pull towards the evil side of life, preffering the warmth and pleasure of a woman rather than the security and stability of the church. Throughout the novel Stephen constantly weighs the pros and cons of each choice, consistently finding less and less pros for staying with the church. In the end his choice of following the path of evil was quite predictable, and seems to fit the characteristics imbued within all humankind. Not only did the path allow for personal freedom and constant pleasures, but it also allowed for Stephen to finally contemplate things which had before been unaccessible due to the churche's restrictive, ever watching eyes.