Blog # 6

I think that the issues of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transexual acceptance is very interesting. While I personally don't care if people are gay and get married, I don't want to be around people who are overly flamboyant. I also don't care as long as I'm not hit on by gay guys or preached to about gay rights because I don't care. I think it's interesting because it's something that really shouldn't be a public issue even though people only care about it because of their religious beliefs but honestly if they're not hurting you then why should you care? I've known gay people that are cool and friendly and honestly didn't think twice about it but one gay person I know was overly flamboyant and annoying and came onto me and he actually goes here to ship. I think the people at the Westboro church were absolutely crazy, they made connections to religion that made no sense. An example of this is when the woman who is the pastor's wife says that being gay is in the ten commandments when she said it was the same as committing adultery which is not true at all. And then they were saying god was killing our  soldiers because we allow gay marriage in America as if soldiers never died before gay marriage was legal. In a nutshell, they're all just biblehugging assholes who need to worry about themselves and get the hell out of America. They can go live in some other country and see how much they like it and if theyre freedom of speech is allowed where they go.

Oranges are not the only fruit was a very difficult book to read because it jumped around way to much and never went into enough detail. But as for the overall message behind the book I thought it was like every other book about a girl who finds herself to be a lesbian. It wasn't very interesting and the only reason it was somewhat readable was the fact that she was sexually active with other girls in the book.

Blog # 5

Both Monser and Incognegro portray the issue of being black in America. While Monster has more hidden undertones of racism and prejudice, it is obvious nonetheless. In Incognegro, racism is very prevalent when Zane and Carl arrive in Mississippi. The first thing they see when they get off the train is a black man getting harassed for no reason by a group of white people. The Conversation that Monster creates about race or privilege, is that would Steve have even been on trial if he were a white sixteen year old male rather than a black male? I think that is would be the same case for the white kid too, considering the witnesses and little bit of evidence that linked him to the scene of the crime, it would have been a crime if he hadnt been on trial, guilty or not. The conversation that Incognegro brings up is what makes white people think they're so much better than black people and why do they consider themselves the law above black people? They treat black people as if they were a race of subhumans rather than what they are, which is completely human. For instance, Zane's brother Alonzo is being held in prison for being accused of a crime he didn't committ. The prison guard even knew that he didn't do it yet he still keeps him there and questions him. They also lynch Zane's friend Carl for claiming to be the "Incognegro". The Incognegro was a disguise that Zane made no attempt to create, it was simply because he was a white skinned black man. This allowed him to infiltrate  clan rallies and lynchings and do reports on them in his column in a harlem newspaper. Incognegro also brings up an issue with gender identity, in the case of Francis Jefferson-White. She was a female from a racist Mississippi family who realized early on that she would get nowhere as a woman so she disguised herself as a man and was eventually killed by a woman simply for walking in the woods. The Themes shared between these two books are racism, privilege, and suspense. Both books are very suspenseful and keep you on the edge of your seat. They relate to our discussion in class on privilege because in the books the White people have the power. And while Zane may technically be black, his skin is white which probably helped him get his job and it definately allowed him to do something nobody else could do. Zane is the only privileged black man in either story, and its because his skin is white.

Blog # 4 - Unit 2

When I was watching the videos, I couldn't help but think to myself that all these people were such cry babies and liberals. Honestly all these people are just oversensitive and need to realize that white privilege does not exist anymore. How can it when there is a specific law called Affirmative Action that gives jobs to less qualified minorites over white people.  Its the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard that people still think white privilege still exists. Its not about being privileged, its about working for what you have and putting effort into the things you do and not taking an easy way out by selling drugs or joinging a gang. To sum up my overall feelings about the videos after I watched them, I was completely disgusted. These white people were saying that their own people are ignorant and stupid. And the fact that they think we should pay reparations made me laugh pretty hard, are you kidding me? Thats like going over to Germany and forcing young adults to pay reparations for the holocaust which they had no part in. Basically by the end of these videos I wanted to punch all of them in the face because of how pathetic they sounded, feeling guilty for being white. Give me a break.

Monster was a decent book because of how it was written. I really liked how it was written in the form of a screenplay. It added a lot of suspense and effect to the text that wouldnt have been present if it was written like a normal book. It's hard to say whether or not Steve was guilty or innocent. There are multiple people who claim they saw him walk out of the store including an old Woman who wasn't involved in the crime at all, but the other two were people actually involved in the crime so it's hard to trust what they say considering they killed a guy then went directly to a fast food place. While he flat out even denies being at the scene of the crime at all on the stand, he wrote in his diary that he was just going there to get some gum and thats it. So he did commit perjury, but it is not clear at all in whether or not he agreed to be apart of the robbery. Was Steve Harmon wrongfully acquitted?

Blog # 3 - The Book Thief

Liesel starts out in the story as a shy, scared little girl who feels abandoned by her mother, father, and brother who died on the train ride to Molching. As time goes by in Molching, we see Leisel develop as a person to where she forms strong bonds with people she had never had other than her mother. She becomes determined to learn to read and write and does so with the help of Hans Hubermann, her new father whom she loves and cares for deeply. She also develops a somewhat odd relationship with her mother, or rather a verbally abusive relationship that she grows to love. She learns how to play soccer and makes friends with Rudy Steiner who also obviously becomes sort of like her childhood sweetheart. She also begins to gather a collection of books from stealing. She stole a book from the book burning held in Molching and steals a few books from the Mayor's house. She also learns survival techniques such as stealing. Liesel and Rudy join Arthur Berg's thieving squad and become pretty craft thieves. She also realizes as she gets older why her mother had to leave her with the Hubermanns, because she was a communist being hunted by the SS. When she discovers this after writing multiple letters to her mom, she realizes that she hates Hitler and the Nazis but is told by Hans that she must never say that out loud.  She befriends Max Vandenburg when he arrives at her house on Himmel street and wonders what could possibly be so wrong with jews that they are being persecuted to this extent. Liesel's perspectives are unique because she is so caring and loves to learn and read, a quality not often found in children her age. I like Liesel because she represents something in Nazi Germany that was hard to find, compassion. She cared so much for her friends and family, and she was from hateful to anybody who was kind to her.

Blog # 2 - Maus Themes

While I was reading Maus, I came upon Prisoner of the Hell Planet. I felt that this section was very different because Spiegelman chose to illustrate humans rather than animals that had been consistent throughout the whole book. I feel that by doing this he is showing just how deeply he was injured by the suicide of his mother. He obviously blames himself for his mother's suicide and has or had tremendous internal turmoil that leads him to believe that everybody blames him. The fact that he shows himself behind bars shows but doesn't specifically say that he is behind bars in his own mind and that he is being put on trial by everyone around him. The dark borders and the menacing characters show the feelings he felt at the time and what he thought people were thinking about him. When I came to this part of the novel, it really let me get into the head of Spiegelman and experience what it would feel like to lose somebody close to you. The most important thing I noticed though was that he chose to use humans rather than animals. I think he did this so he could accurately portray just how terrible and emotional of a time this was in his life.

All About Me

Hi my name is Carl Seltzer, I'm 20 years old and a sophomore here at ship. My major is geo/environmental studies and my minor is physics so I have a decent workload haha. I like to lift and exercise a lot at the rec center. I wrestled in High school at Central Dauphin high school and one of my teammates was Simon Rice who is also in this class. I'm from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and I like to just hang out and meet new people. I have two dogs named zoidy and jb. Zoidy is named after a character from Futurama because it's been my favorite show for almost 10 years. I can ride a unicycle pretty good and I'm not to bad racquetball. I'm a pretty open guy so I'll talk to anybody without judging them. If your nice to me I'll always be nice to you because I feel that respect is everything. I started learning German over the summer and now I finally got into a German class here at ship after waiting so long . I gotta say that I'm not to thrilled about having Nordai for Calc I but I honestly had no choice but to take him. I chose this class because I needed a diversity credit for my academic record but in all honesty I don't like the fact that ship demands a diversity credit because I feel like schools are trying to shove it down students throats. Diversity shouldn't be forced it should be a choice but trust me when I say that I'm the last person to show intolerance to people's color or ethnicity. The last book that I read on my free time was The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. I read this book because my moms fiancee reccomended that I read it and I'm glad he did because it really opened up my eyes to the world around me. The book talked about meditation for maybe 15-20 minutes in the morning but also taking time out of your day to experience pure silence because according the Law of Pure Potentiallity, you experience the most creative ideas when you remain silent and lose yourself in your mind. Obviously some of the books may be like this book but most likely I'm expecting all of them to deal with racism and I highly disagree with the idea of white privilege. It may have existed 30 or 40 years ago but in the present world everybody in america is pretty much on the same level, even though bullcrap like affirmative action exsists but hey who the hell am I in the grand scheme of things. That's pretty much all you need to know about me but if you'd like to get to know me better don't be affraid to approach me in class.