Honors Blog: Invisible Man

The way how the people react to the invisible man develops the theme throughout the story. The theme, being fear of the unknown, develops when the people of the village that the invisible man, Griffin, is staying at, become so curious of who he is. As they come to learn more about Griffin they become more fearful of him and when he finally reveals, or tries to reveal who he is and what’s wrong with him, everyone becomes fearful of him. I think that they become so fearful of him because they don’t know where he is and what he will do. These are the literary terms that I believe are in the Invisible Man: H.G. Wells.

One of the literary terms that I found in the Invisible Man would have to be flashbacks from chapters 20-24. Flashbacks allowed the writer present past events during current events, in this case when Griffin is explaining to Kemp how he got to be invisible. I think that this literary term is important because it’s the way that we learn how he became the way that he is. Reading how he go to where he is we learn how he go the way he is and how being invisible gives him so much power.

The second literary term that I found was antagonist. Antagonist is someone who prevents the main character from living “happily ever after”. Griffin is preventing the entire village from living “happily ever after”. In chapter 24 paragraph 27, Griffin mentions to Kemp, “… That invisible man, Kemp, must now establish a reign of terror. Yes-no doubt it’s startling. But I mean it. A reign of terror. He must take some town like your Burdock and terrify and dominate it.” Even though only Kemp heard this I think that this is what the village felt he would do. Griffin was preventing the village from going back to normal.

The third literary term that I noticed was parable, a story that has a moral. I think that the moral of the story was that an power tend to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely, meaning that Griffins morality lessens as he gets more power. I think that this is more like a story with a moral because when Griffin tries to create a reign of terror he just gets killed in the end.

In the end Griffin is killed after he goes on a rampage killing people of the village. One thing that I debated with my dad, who has read the book too, is it the drugs that causes the invisible man to go mad, or is it just him having so much power that makes him go mad. Which do you think it is? Leave comments.

The McCain campaign accused ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) of voter fraud. They supposedly intentionally submitted invalid registration forms. ACORN has said that the forms they are talking about are ones that they had flagged. ACORN was said to be “on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter democracy” by John McCain. My personal opinion is that John McCain is blaming ACORN because he is behind in the polls.1

ACORN though shouldn't be at fault for voter registrations. They shouldn't be at fault because it is illegal for them to not turn in any voter registration forms. ACORN has flagged voter registration forms but election officials publicize them to bring it to voters attention. There is a past history of voter registration fraud from ACORN. 2005 Colorado Springs there were 73 cases, and a recent one of an ACORN Las Vegas office in the case, ACORN submitted over 1,800 new voter registration forms, and all but six of the 1,800 names were fake. More recently, 27,000 registrations handled by the group from January to July 2008.

Voter suppression is when the government or other organizations discourage or stop people from voting. I found this chart on the Union Tribune site of San Diego. The chart includes a list of 4,655 San Diegans whose registrations were rejected due to a number of reasons :

Form not signed
Printed name and signature do not match
No birthday provided and over 18 box not filled
Incomplete signature(first name)
Too young( over 18 more than a year)
1st name only provided and cannot read signature and phone number either not provided or not good
Incomplete residence address phone number not good
Out of country
Printed Signature
Business address
Foreign born and citizenship bubble not filled

the thing though is that what if it wasnt the persons fault what if the person gave the right information but the person who was filling it out was the person that made the mistake. These are questions that have been bought up.

Debate Reflection

Describe the 2008 Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates in their historical context.

 

The main topics of the 2008 debates were mostly based on the economic crisis, Wall Street and the $700 billion bailout. The McCain v. Obama debates were not that different from each other, the candidates were just kind of saying the same thing. McCain would say what bad choices Obama has made in the past like, “We had an energy bill before the United States Senate. It was festooned with Christmas tree ornaments. It had all kinds of breaks for the oil companies, I mean, billions of dollars worth. I voted against it; Senator Obama voted for it.” Obama would do the same, “Over 26 years, Senator McCain voted 23 times against alternative energy, like solar, and wind, and biodiesel.”   The Lincoln and Douglas debates were based on slavery and whether or not whites would remain the dominate race.  The format that they used is now different then how it was during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The Lincoln Douglas debates was 60 Minutes for person A to make their point, 30 minutes for person B to respond to what person A said, 60 minutes for Person B to make their point and than 30 minutes for Person A to respond to what person B has said. The McCain v. Obama debate is now divided into about 9 minute segments and about 2 hours long. 

How has the Internet affected the way that Americans approach democracy? How does the Internet and it's effects fit into the historical context of technology and democracy in America?

Democracy is a form of government in which citizens chose president. I think that internet has affected the way that Americans approach democracy because the internet has so much sources. Take the presidential candidates Obama and McCain for example, they both are topics of many sites some sites criticizing them and some praising them. People also go to sites to research which one would be the best choice for them or not. I think that the internet now is the main source for presidential candidates to do campaiging since most people are on the internet back when there was no internet they used posters, commercials and stuff like that.

Newspaper Reflection

Something that I contributed to the paper that I really liked are the headlines, that could be found throughout the whole newspaper, at the the bottom of the page. I did 1/2 of them and Ashley did the other 1/2. I like them because there funny.



Something specific that I contributed to the final product that I think could've been better, would be the spelling mistakes. There some spelling mistakes that I should've caught like in the headlines at the bottom of the mewspaper page it says physic intstead of Psychic. I also think that the layout couldve been better to. A way I think I couldve helped make it better is by over the weekend I couldve drawn out some ideas so that when we had to do it on Monday it wouldnt have taken that long.



What I did throughout the project is on the first day Ashley and I sat together and brainstormed some topics for articles and then assigned them. I looked over the Charleston debate transcripts and highlighted some important quotes from Douglas. I critiqued my partners work while they critiqued mine, we did this a couple of times. I worked on the headlines for my article, found a photo and made a caption. We all worked on the layout and design equal amounts of times too. I think that I used my resources well until it came to the layout and design. I definitely think that it could've been much better and looked more like a newspaper.

Photography

Rule of thirds
Imagine a grid 3 by 3. Where the lines intersect on the grid is where the main focus should be.



Depth of Field
Its a photo where one specific thing is in focus and the rest isn't.


Eyes, Color, Fill the frame and macro photography
The photograph should filll frame it should be filled with color. the photographer gets more of an emotional response from the viewer when eyes are the main focus. Macro Photography is close up photography.



Interesting use of light



Shooting at eye level



Thanks for letting me use the photos Nick

1.The Charleston, Illinois debate was focused around whether or not the senator candidates were for equality of whites and Africans and slavery. Stephen Douglas was for whites having all the rights. Douglas said, I say that this Gavernment was established on the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and never should be administered by any except white men. Lincoln said “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.”



2. My initial thoughts on the first presidential debate were that it wasn’t all that exciting. I had expected it to me more exciting but it wasn’t really like WOW. I don’t think that anyone won the debate. I do think though, that Obama made more sense with what he was saying and with what needed to be done, for instance, when the question that came up that was, As president, as a result of whatever financial rescue plan comes about and the billion, $700 billion, whatever it is it's going to cost, what are you going to have to give up, in terms of the priorities that you would bring as president of the United States, as a result of having to pay for the financial rescue plan? Obamas answer was that he knew we that we weren’t going to be able to do everything because of the $700 billion bailout. So instead of saying what he would cut back on he answered with what we would not get rid of. He started out by saying that we need energy independence so he has put a plan forward to make sure that in 10 years time we will have freed ourselves from dependence on Middle Eastern Oil and to do that we would need to start more production here at home but mostly invest in more alternative energy like solar, wind, and biodiesel. He will fix our health care system since it’s a mess, people are going bankrupt cause of it and the third thing being that we need to compete in our education invest in science and technology and make sure our children are keeping up in math and in science and to make college affordable for every young person here in America. McCain just says that we need to cut spending and to do that we need to examine every agency of government. He brings up examples of the past spending like how we built a little ship called the Littoral Combat Ship that cost $140 million and actually ended up costing $400 million and it’s still not finished. I think that Obama made more sense here because he reassured people that he wouldn’t cut back on these things while McCain just said he would cut spending.

In the vice presidential debate I thought that no one really made a great point but if I had to choose I would choose Biden because he answered the questions clearly unlike Sarah Palin. Palin even said, "I may not answer the question the way you want to hear, but I'll talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record".

In the second presidential debate I didn’t really like. I like the formal way instead of the towns hall-style, more because it just seemed like they were giving one of their speeches. There wasn’t really anything new that I had heard.

Demographic Blog

I don’t really have any questions regarding demographics, except on how do they get their information?

The amount of those with in the city I live in, National City, is 11,652 or 24%. I believe that these people will be impacted if Obama becomes president. I think that they will become impacted because Obama wants to make health care available to everyone. As in this article of “Barack Obama and John McCain on Foreign Policy the Economy and the US Healthcare system” it states that “ Obama wants to provide universal healthcare coverage for Americans”

My personal repsonse to this article is that I dont think that everyone should have free healthcare because I don't think everyone deserves healthcare. Anyways how are they going to pay for the healthcare for everyone?

Democrats:Then and Now

I have chosen to compare and contrast the difference of the democrat party during the great depression and now because the Great Depression was mostly due to stock markets collapsing. Right now stock markets are dropping too. One thing that I noticed with these two comparisons is that they both still seem to be aware of the same thing which is helping the people.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: President during Great Depression

October 29, 1929 the NY Stock Exchange took catastrophic collapses of the stock market prices. The next few years the stock market didn’t bounce back quickly. Next three years stock prices continued to fall. Late 1932 stocks dropped to about 20% of the value they were worth in 1929. The stock drops strained banks and other financial institutions causing 11,000 of the 25,000 banks to fail. The result of production, due to reduced levels of spending, led to a downward spiral. The Great Depression caused Unemployment to rise 12-15 million workers, which was about 25-30 % of the work force then.[i]

When Roosevelt was elected as president, in 1932, 13,000,000 were unemployed and almost every bank closed. What Roosevelt proposed was a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those that were close to losing their farms and homes. Roosevelt’s new program of reform was: social security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new control over banks and a work relief program for those who were unemployed. [ii]

First 100 days of Roosevelt in office, The Emergency Banking Bill, passed during Roosevelts administration, was to strengthen, reorganize and reopen banks; this was passed overwhelmingly by congress. March 12 Roosevelt made an announcement that “soundest banks would reopen.” The next day banks exceeded withdrawals according to Raymond Moley “Capitalism was saved in eight days.”[iii]

Obama: Democratic Candidate

Right now stock markets are fluctuating like the Great Depression. $700 billion was said to be needed as the bailout but it was voted against and didn’t get approved. Soon after DOW Jones plunged around 600 points. It has gone up 485 points now and as of today its gone down again 348 points[iv]

During the Presidential Candidate Debate, of Obama v. McCain, one of the lead questions was, “As president, as a result of whatever financial rescue plan comes about and the billion, $700 billion, whatever it is it’s going to cost, what are you going to have to give up, in terms of the priorities that you would bring as president of the United States, as a result of having to pay for the financial rescue plan?”. Obama responded what he wouldn’t stop, “We have to fix our health care system … make sure that we’re competing in education… make sure that college is affordable for every young person in America… new electricity grid to get the alternative energy to population centers that are using them.”

McCain(left) and Obama (right)

here September 26, 2008 debating

at the presidential candidate debate.

The topic during the presidential was

focused around the $700 billion bailout.

Republican View

___________________________
[i]About the Great Depression." University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign :: Department of English. 30 Sep. 2008
[ii]Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt." Welcome to the White House. 30 Sep. 2008 r32.html>.
[iii]"THE FIRST 100 DAYS." Tom Huppi. 1 Oct. 2008 .