I like this picture the best. It displays a freezing environment of trees and a lake. I can't tell if the water is frozen and the trees are growing even through the ice (would make it even cooler). Either way, the bitter cold, blue water is the best feature of this photo. Beauty even in the most bitter environments.

I like this picture of this little insect clinging for its life. It displays the beauty of things even in harsh situations. The colors and lines of what I believe to be rain make this picture more dynamic and makes it jump out at me.

I like this picture beacuse it has a blue-collar feel to it. As its caption said, this is one way for this northern Swedish man to feed his family. I like the angel from inside the vehicle. Also, how it shows the man outside about to kill something and then one person inside the car all safe and sound is pretty cool.

How is it that people know who this is, but they don't know who this is? How come they've read this, but they are disgusted when they read this?

People have too many distractions today, we are becoming an attention deficit society. What would these people do if they couldn't update that status one more time, couldn't see that new episode of Family Guy, couldn't send that one last texzt?

Is it just me noticing the values and morals of society going out the window as the new generation gets older? I doubt these sophomores know what those two words even mean. Because they don't value education, or intelligence, or the strength of their own mind.

Why is it more important to read Ashley's status and new note on facebook than to see Ralph and Jack and Simon and Piggy's quarrels on that little island? Because to them, it is not relevant. It doesn't concern them. Reading as Piggy is smacked off that cliff and his body shattering against the rocks means nothing. Its fiction.

But if they took a few days to read the book, they'd see the similarities between these 12 and under boys and themselves. Let's take a look at another book, even darker than The Lord of the Flies.

In A Brave New World, Aldous Huxley shows us what our society is headed to, even faster than he had originally thought. If he hadn;t died in 1963, and he were alive today, he would be appalled at how true his words are. How the world won't be controlled ruthlessly by a Big Brother inflicting pain and using fear to control citizens like in 1984, but how we will be overcome, not by what we hate, but what we love.

A shallow society, with hollow minds, and even more hollow hearts. The world IS becoming irrelevant to today's youth. It all doesn't matter, because I have to see this hilarious commercial.

Many books are out there to describe the future in a dystopian society (The Lord of the Flies, A Brave New World, A Clockwork Orange, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Giver), and combined they tell a somber truth about the world being inherited by the next generation.

I will always keep a copy of my favorite books, 1984 being my ultimate favorite. But as the world becomes less relevant to the ones around me, and soon they start forgetting books, strange things will happen. 1984 may not be the society we are heading for, but the novel has one thing deathly right. If everyone in the world believes something, is it true? Or more importantly, if they don't believe in something, or merely forgot it (like books) does that mean it isn't beautiful? Does that make the art of J.R.R. Tolkien and his Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings any less beautiful, because I'm the only one who thinks so?

JoePa and Puppies

We were talking about JoePa in class. Here's my opinion:

He lived a great life. He helped so many kids. He was a hero to many. He was selfless. Finally, he did not tell authorities about a case of child molestation that he knew was occuring. If you ask me, that is pretty messed up. It's not like he knew about some roberry, or some planned assault: he knew about a dozen kids being molested by a member of his coaching staff and by my guess, his friend.

I don't think his whole life should be forgotten by recent events, but the new events will always overshadow his life as "saint".

ON another note, I'm secretly getting my girlfriend a puppy for her borthday in February. She and her parents don't know about it, and I'm not sure what their reactions will be, but still.

Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrophysicist,cosmologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in space and natural sciences. During his lifetime, he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he advocated scientifically skeptical inquiry and the scientific method, pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Sagan became world-famous for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which he narrated and co-wrote. The book Cosmos was published to accompany the series. Sagan wrote the novel Contact, the basis for a 1997 film of the same name.

(This man is my hero)