The Lottery , my view

The lottery is a short story by Shirley Jackson, and this is what I think about it.

The lottery was a very welcome festival and in all ways makes you think that it was normal: "Soon the men began to gather surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes." and "The women, wearing faded dresses and sweaters, came shortly afetr their manfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands." This is normal, and stated nothing about the unusual ending. Also there is anticipation and nervousness during the lottery, as shown in paragraph 9 in their tone "Mr Summers who had been waiting said cheerfully,"Thought we were going to have to get on without you Tessie." Mrs Hutchinson said grinning, "Wouldn't have me leave m'dishes on the sink, now would you Joe?" and the way the story was told was in such a casual friendly tone, it told me at first that the lottery was a good thing! It was not until the end when they told us the fate of the winners. In this unusual context which was supposedly pointless, many wrote to express thier disgust when this was first published. In the time this story was written, tradition was probably rampant. In paragraph 17, they described the people who gave up the lottery a pack of crazy fools. This was because of "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon." It is ridiculous that over a good harvest, the lottery is held and a sacrifice is made. Even tradition could split apart friends as just a while ago they were chatting happily! At the end, in paragraph 30 "Mrs Delacroix selected a stone so huge she had to pick it up with both hands" This ending, where Tessie got stoned, shows particularly how evil we can be, killing for our own good. Also this shows us how ritual behaviour: like "I killed for a yearly tradition" can be extremely dangerous.
When Mrs Hutchinson demanded that her daughter also be included in the lottery to improve her chances of living, it is also how much we can do to be desperate for our own life. We are all selfish. Sad.

Edit: OMG I just found out Delacroix means the cross in latin

Medicinal properties in animals- SAVETHEMOONBEAR

Moon bears are an endangered species. They are being hunted for their bile, which serves pharmaceutical usage by containing a component UDCA Quoting as a wiki fillers:



"Bear bile was prescribed by practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine because it contained a higher percentage of UDCA than the bile of other mammals. However, modern chemistry has made this fact irrelevant. Today, pharmaceutical-grade UDCA is now collected from slaughter houses, then purified and packaged under trade names such as Ursofalk, Actigall, and UrsoForte. These products are approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). Chinese doctors have also endorsed several herbal substitutes, which provide a cheap, effective and readily available alternative."



So many facts like this seem irrelevant, and moon bears shoold not be hunted for their bile, but these horrible chinese bile farms may still have brisk business because of some factors:

• Are the people in China aware of such a product, and therefore stop being reliant on bear bile ?


• Is the product readily accesible?


• Would the chinese continue ignoring these articles and reports and do nothing to change?

A quote from a website too includes that the bears were thin, and put under a lot of stress, riddled with parasites, draining pus and pain from the gall bladder. Rightfully, as moon bears are an endangered species, they should not be used for their medicinal properties, as this makes even more danger to their extinction. Defining bile, it actually has less medicinal or at most the same medicinal properties as drugs that do the same thing, and can be mass produces using horse bile. But maybe as moon bears are rarer, they may create bette bile, but however this is not true. OFten the peoples mindset may contribute to the brisk business for these Chinese men.

So I urge you. Change your mindset about medicinal properties in animals. I remphasize.
Bring a heart. Animals have lives too. Save the moon bear.

The Taximan STory

I have no I idea why this must be a blog prompt but here goes...

DO NOT CUT & PASTE

Irony: the taxi man picks the girls and English and American "boyfriends" in the taxi, going besides hotels and places like such to wait, but to make a quick buck, caring not to discourage such behavior. The evils of money, caused the daughter to become one like such person with behavior problems.

Was the older method, having complete authority over children, even up to marriage useful? Methods like caning for punishment , result in the same problem anyway?

Everything needs to be done in moderation. Quoted from the book: "My father he was very strict, and that is a good thing for parents to be strict. If not, young boys and girls become very useless." but with a more lenient person that happens. If the dad was too strict, would the person run away or confide in drinks and alcohol?

ANother theme is good and evil. The daughter being a good girl on one side but bad on the other. The taxi man, or her dad works hard to send her to university but she made herself so cheap, and the consequences were harsh. Talks or debates about curfews and freedom are still ongoing. A great saying ,with great power comes greater responsibility. But some adolescences still do not have the maturity to act decently and so freedom is taken away till the grow up, Freedom needs to be earned.

The general plot in the story is believable. I believe, many teenager are having sex at a younger age, and many are in love, or is that infatuation? HAnging around wearing the latest fashion, being a bigshot, spending lots of cash, these actions are done to impress others. Some women, use their beauty to seduce men or even teenagers. Soon, a love at first sight case could turn into nightclub parties, drinking and making love. Seduction proves horrible.

I feel sympathy for the taximan. Him having worked so hard during his job and having been caned and scolded by his parents, but only to be betrayed by the youngest daughter. Was it all her fault though?? Was the taximan to lax in his duty as a father?? maybe.

processed food -- the scoop

Fast foods, tinned food, ice cream, frozen food, all these are processed. Processed food are foods that have literally been processed and not in their natural state. Like tinned fruit with syrup, when the fruit, eg. lychee, longan, pineapple are no longer fresh. Most tinned food have a long shelf life but it means nutrients have been sucked out of the fruit when it was being processed. With reference to longans in heavy syrup, ( I eat these every like one month - a sinful snack) The vitamin C content of longans is about 60.1 mg/ 100 grams, and consuming 12 - 14 longans can already meet the daily requirement of 75 - 90mg of vitamin C. But tinned longans vitamin C content is about 4% of the daily requirement per 100 grams, and eating these( along with the syrup), you have to eat almost 50 of them! I reckon the vitamin C was washed out when the fruit are washed.

Processed foods are bad for us and sadly I eat somewhat a lot of them. I eat cornflakes as a snack whether sugary or not. I also love puff pastry. Occasionally I eat sausages. OK I guess but after reading this article on the Internet, quoting from: http://nutrition.about.com/od/askyournutritionist/f/processedfoods.htm
"Processed meats might be some of the worst of these foods. Eating these meats may increase your risk of colorectal, kidney and stomach cancer. Processed meats include hot dogs, bologna, sausage, ham and other packaged lunch meats."

Oh crap I'd better improve my diet.

Although most processed foods are bad, milk is an exception. Technically it is also a processed food, as fat has been skimmed of in the low fat or skimmed version, and the milk has been pasteurized. Also frozen vegetables may be good. While most frozen stuff, like meat lose flavour the more it is kept in the fridge, vegetables retain freshness and vitamins, making it convenient. The same goes with juices.

Joke

I just had to post this really funny joke:

A man went for a pun competition and sent in ten puns. He waited for the results but what he saw disappointed him. As it turned out:
No pun in ten did.

Lol you should get it after reading it one time.

Old equipment - Thursday

Wow. This is the first time I'm writing about other stuff. Yesterday there was a problem with the class com and then the entire thing hanged when it was starting up. On Wednesday there was a problem with the mouse so no teacher could log on. When we were supposed to be watching NIC the AVA reps were trying to figure out what was wrong.

The class cleanliness didn't work out and our class was the worst in the entire consortium.
Areas of Improvements:- Keep away old newspapers, magazines, unwanted items e.t.c.- Clear away the litter around the rubbish bin. ( taken from the SMB ) Well I hope that next time our facility secretary (philmann) would be more conscious about cleanliness and prompt us about the classes condition and the duty persons job. Mr Tan Kok Kim wants to meet the facilities secretary (is that a blessing or a curse?)

Reader's digest joke: The newly hired musician was having trouble keeping up with the cruise ship's orchestra. The captain got so fed up he threatened, " Either keep up with the band or I'll throw you overboard. Your choice: Sync or swim.

World's largest dam Three Gorges

The world's largest dam in China is called the three gorges dam. It is by far very expensive at 39 billion US dollars and also the most notorious dam ever made, drawing criticism from many environmental activists. The building of the dam has caused many problems on the source of the Yangtze river. Pros and cons include:

Pros

• Flooding control: for many years the Yangtze has overflowed its banks due to monsoon rains, and building the dam reduces water flow into the mouth of the river, controlling flooding and blocking excess water. Many industries are built by the river and farmers also farm near as water is plentiful. To prevent a huge flood means many billions of dollars in damages can be avoided.
• Environmental impact(positive): Hydro electricity by building the dam would reduce the country's dependence on coal, there for cutting carbon emissions. China is the largest emitter of carbon, and achieving clean hydro electric energy would bring China one step closer to stopping global warming. Also, Industries have been reminded to treat toxic waste before dumping it in the river and up to 65% (confirmed) of factories have done so. Also waste treatment sites have been built.
• Reforestation has also been accelerated by the China government to prevent huge floods near the river basin.

Cons

• Relocation: Relocation of many farmers would also have to take place, as water levels would obviously rise and flood many homes. Farmers are put off by the lack of assistance by local governments and sometimes even corruption can be a obstacle to farmers where tax money is taken and not paid as compensation to farmers.
• Pollution and erosion : when water levels rise before the dam the ability to flush out pollutants by the river is slowed down so pollutants accumulate and may affect ecosystems. Also trees which are removed cannot hold on to soil with roots so erosion might occur. Sedimentation would affect water quality, and even, the silt may decrease the efficiency of the turbines. To clean up the entire river, over a billion yuan is needed. Also the sediments may block the entrance and cause dam failure and an overflow of water causing more floods.
• Cultural and aesthetic problems: The dam causes many different cultural or historical artefacts to be submerged. Although some of them are removable, many historical locations cannot be removed because of its size or other factors.

references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam