EVIL! *><*

At this point, I just really want to finish the book and be done with it, but yet again we have not only an extended ending, but it completely contradicts everything that Mark Twain seemed to be building up to about Huck maturing and how his views towards Jim have changed. The last few (what should have been the last) chapters took the book into a full loop right back to where it started with Huck and Tom messing around and pranking Jim. What happened there? It would have been much better off if Jim was set free and Huck ventured into the distance to an exciting new adventure out west, but of course there must have been one last point Mark Twain was trying to make, that is if he even wrote it at all. To me it didn’t seem like the style of writing he had been imposing on us before, but who am I to say he didn’t necessarily write it?

“Picks is the thing, moral or no moral; and as for me, I don’t care shucks for the morality of it, nohow. When I start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sunday school book, I ain’t no ways particular how it’s done so it’s done. What I want is my nigger; or I want my watermelon; or what I want is my Sunday school book; and if a pick’s the handiest thing, that’s the thing I’m a-going to dig that nigger or that watermelon or that Sunday school book out with; and I don’t give a dead rat what the authorities thinks about it nuther.” -p237

Wow. If this doesn’t show total disregard to everything Huck and Jim have gone through, then I don’t know what else does. Perhaps there are better quotes in the same part when they actually make him go into the shed, stain his own shirt with blood then throw it out the window, etc etc but this should do just the same. Huck seems to be explaining his point by using the examples “nigger” referring to Jim as if his life wasn’t depending on getting out of that shed despite the fact he was in there for several weeks; “watermelon” which I thought interesting because Huck did steal things he absolutely needed (food yes) and a “Sunday School book”. That interested me the most because Huck didn’t believe that Heaven was the ideal place to go since his friends would all be hanging out in Hell and it didn’t sound like one could have fun in Heaven anyways. So why would Huck care about a Sunday School Book if he didn’t give a dead rat for dead people (like Moses), didn’t want to go to Heaven, and certainly gave up trying to do good in the first place, knowing he had broken the law by freeing Jim? So here we have the “nigger”, the person he had once thought of as a father and a brother now reduced to a piece of property or even a simple object, a “watermelon” being food, something he could get anywhere or steal because he wanted it, and a “Sunday School Book” which doesn’t sound all that important to him anyway. My last and only other thought is how dare Huck do that to Jim after all they’ve been through! Such a complete turn around from the great ending I was expecting. Very anti-climactic if you ask me.

As this book just seems to go on, and on, and even onner (my word, add it to the dictionary) I just seem to get more bored. Mark Twain sure can extend the moment, but jeese sometimes it just goes on long enough! What could have been maybe a chapter or two like the encounter with the King and Duke just went too far. I really didn’t like them to begin with, but I grew to resent reading the dang thing as I went along. Here’s a really good example of the really poor impression they presented to me;

“…And every little while the prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks, would up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by; and he always done it; and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five or six times- and he was invited to stay a week; and everyone wanted him to live in their houses…” -p128

Though at first when I read this, I thought it was sweet that he would do that for those nice young women, but another look I realized that he might very well just be taking advantage of all of them. Was he really a pirate needing sustenance for a lost crew? He didn’t seem that way when he told Huck and Jim that he was an exile from France, meaning he had a seat of great power at one time. It seems he’s just lying to get a nice house, more attention than what’s needed and some extra money to get by. He’s also “doing good” to the women of the audience a little excess. Hugs and kisses are nice, and inspire a few “awww” moments I suppose, but it says only some of them got extra, so that makes it sound a little bit like he’s exerting his racial superiority by taking advantage of their pity. If this sounds offensive or like I’m over considering the passage, contact me. Though I probably won’t shut up, I’ll most definitely accept the comment .

Well, if I were to ever pick up a book with endless amounts of satirical referances, Huck Finn was probably one of the best, because I must say; I am not disappointed. Here’s one I found while reading:

“Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes gentlemen, you see before you, in blue pants and misery, the wanderin’, exiled, trampled-on, and sufferin’ rightful King of France.” -p120

I thought this was pretty funny as seeing how these crazy old guys who Huck just randomly met (as he does a lot of people throughout these chapters I suppose) speak english pretty well (and by the looks of it with a pretty good southern accent) and claim their King and Dukes of France. Shouldn’t such high quality or at least former high quality men of France be a little more well kept and more…French? The Satire alert is a blowin’.

Though traces of racism still exist today between the Latino-Americans, the Muslim people and African Americans living presently, I have my doubts it was ever as bad as when we still had slaves, being the late 1800’s. One of the reason that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is being banned by many school curriculums is because it deals with racism; a topic that few educators want to delve into too deeply and often avoid. An example of racism is when even though it could possibly be a coincidence Jim went missing the same time Huck did, Jim is immediately the main suspect of the murder. By all means, it could have very well been Huck’s father (though we know it wasn’t but they sure don’t) since he so poorly mistreats and neglects his own son. He could have been in a drunken rage and Huck could have said something to piss him off enough to kill him. Even though we know this isn’t true, it is possible, but instead Jim is the automatic scape goat, and a bounty is placed on his head. (He did escape as well, causing an alternative motive for the bounty, but for a time they did think he did it).

Huck’s father is definitely the worst case I’ve ever encountered when it comes to supporting others, despite their skin color. Here’s a satisfactory quote on page 27;

“Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohio-a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain’t a man in that town that got as fine clothes as what he had…etc”

I can’t imagine why Huck’s father would really care about how the African Americans are being treated if he didn’t own a slave nor did he know of any personally that he knew he had power over. He certainly didn’t have any money, nor did he have a role in any highly respectable positions in his own government. I don’t see how he has the position to be in to complain when he’s too drunk himself to vote! Go figure…

It doesn’t surprise me at all that the book we’re reading, Huck Finn is full of satires, and is constantly poking fun and pointing out the flaws of the time period of when it was written. A few vague examples are Ms Loftus, being a complete definition of a “sivilized” human being and yet she drops the n bomb constantly as if it weren’t a big deal. Just another word in the every day vocabulary like “as” or “him”. Yet another is Tom Sawyer himself, when he plays robbers and wants to make a gang of burglars who aso double as murderers and yet they still find themselves crashing Sunday School parties and waving around sticks. He tried to be a bad boy like Huck, but he’s still a good innocent little kid just trying to look tough.

A few more specific examples are ones I found as follows:

“And he said if a man owned a beehive, and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die. Jim says bees wouldn’t sting idiots; but I didn’t believe that, because I had tried that lts of times myself, and they wouldn’t sting me.” -p.45

I found this quite humorous, but confusing at first. I think Jim was really trying to get a joke out by stumping Huck. This is just one of those instances where the southerners somehow have this knowledge of the weirdest things (African Americans, usually, since they were expected to know all about witchcraft and the sort). Personally, I had never heard such an absurd statement in my life, but it was really funny to hear it (once I finally got it). Another (maybe a better) example was one I discovered on p. 46:

“Yes. You know that one-laigged nigger dat b’longs to old Misto Bradish? Well, he set up…” -Ch 8

Very very interesting that an African American slave like Jim would address one of his own as a person being labeled by the n-bomb. I would figure that at least they had respect for one another, but it seems as though some or many of them have been convinced they are truly inferior to their white owners and deserve such a derogatory term to call them. Especially if it’s based solely on physical features.

According to Baker’s report, I agree something needs to be done to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute. Though America did support Israel, I am pretty sure we had no intention do so for spite against the Arabs. I highly disagree with shifting our main objective to getting our troops out. Before the discussion today, I was pretty passionate about getting our soldiers out, but not knowing the risks of doing so. Back then, my only reason was to keep more of ours from dying, but now I see things in a whole new perspective. Though there a death squads, traces of Al-Queda, and Shiite insurgents and what not in Iraq, the bigger concern is to stabilize the nation before its neighbors seek to either dismantle it or conquer it. Saudi Arabia announced it would send forces over to help “make sure the Suni don’t take over” when in fact the Suni are the majority. Right there, that’s a potential danger, for those forces could very well be terrorists. Note I said, could, not are.

The Removal of our troops would mean we had intensified and sped up the process of which Iraq would fall into an era of deep trouble and political unrest and then abandoned the nation left to its own devices and to its neighbors. I also believe that one day Saddam would have naturally died, or fell from power, but his strict removal by us swept the nation into a depression. This was the beginning of the struggle to keep Iraq standing on its own two feet.

Intensifying our presence there does seem more reasonable as long we are still supportive, but more along the sidelines. The Iraqi army will hopefully be able to support and protect its own country, and with our help (though it seems they really don’t want it at all) this could be possible. This completely contrasts with how I felt before, but hey, opinions change. Especially when they get a few facts straight.

Satire (according to dictionary.com):

The use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.

According to our class, we deducted that a satire was nothing different, but a sick humorous way of depicting a controversial issue, often ensuing in an umcofortable feeling if you get it, swift and just anger if you don’t.  We are on the verge of starting (if we haven’t already) the adventures of Huck Finn.  Banned in many school curriculums, this book covers all the issues of the time.  The idea was, that Mark Twain would publish the book in order to expose the animosity and inhumane subject of slavery.  Huck Finn, from what I already know, breaks the strictest rule of his state; in the sense that he assists a slave in escaping his plantation to be free.  When I read and listened to the article where Irish babies were proposed to become a “delicious dish” to feed a good family of four, I was in a state of horror.  But as it turned out, it apparently was supposed to be funny.  Some people got it, but as they laughed I became even disgusted with my own classmates.  I was one of those who just didn’t get it.  As the definition implies, only those who get it find it funny, the others just see it as moronic or distasteful.  The Onion proved the most bizarre of the examples of satire.  The one about the “Theory of Math” I found completely idiotic and was quick to explain the error.  My family often tells me I take things too seriously, and once again this was the case.  As usual, I had over-analyzed the situation but completely skipped over the fact it was just a joke.  It was supposed to be dumb.   All these are examples of satires.  The author or illustrator wants to get a point across, and all the time that point is that they imply change.  Writers of satire demand change, and subtly expose that which is wrong and wish only to see it be changed. 

As I read Frederick Douglass’s work on how a slave lived I was horrified at such an apalling scene set before me.  Sleeping without beds, but with hard scratchy blankets, living an entire year with the same clothing, and being restricted from anything pleasurable by the tyrannical Mr. Severe.  Singing provided, form what I already know, a way to complain without getting whipped.  They sang of their woes on the plantation, their poor living conditions, or their unending hunger.  They were only given around 8 pounds of pork or fish (whatever was in season) but the thing was, it expired.  Within weeks too. 

Many slaves had families, and the children, figuring they needed less, were only given a shirt or two with possibly socks or shoes.  Their food rations were given to their guardians.  The slaves sang to express their reluctance to be where they were and the pain they were undergoing.  On the terms of the Underground Railroad and the GrapeVine, song was a well organized code, the lyrics sometimes changed to fit a message but still followed the tune of the original song. 

According to the article and past ones we have already covered, the African-Americans were very religious, at least those who were considered sophisticated enough to attend.  They sat in churches, being preached about why it was set in the Bible that they were supposed to be slaves.  It was within the will of God that they would live the hard and unbountiful lives they were already suffering.

Election Day has come and passed, Lieberman won, Bush is still in office, whupdeedo, but what do we do about kids as young as our seniors who are putting their lives on the line to “police” a country that clearly wants us out? Sure I agree that now that the Democrats almost officially control the House of Representatives and The Senate we have the potential to change some things around here, but what worries me is ‘will we’? My mom is a teacher and one of her kids has a brother who died in Iraq. I was grading his geography paper (and it wasn’t turning out too well) and called my mother over to help decipher what hyroglyphs he had tried to print. She told me to; ‘go easy on him, he doesn’t have a brother anymore because he was killed in Iraq.’

Many of the stories troops tell in the blogs are about everyday life at their bases. But some also show how terrifying, confusing and chaotic battle can be. Among the most gripping stories told so far: Army Spc. Colby Buzzell’s Aug. 5, 2004, account in his blog My War of a battle in Mosul, Iraq, the day before. “I saw 2 guys creeping around this corner … (and) hiding behind a stack of truck tires,” he wrote. “I saw another guy come out of that corner with an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) in his hands. I freaked … I gathered my composure as fast as I could, put the cross hairs (of a gun) on them and engaged them. … I didn’t see anybody move from behind those tires after that.”

It kills me to hear that we have people every day in a country we aren’t very familiar or friendly with and are dying trying to help a people that obviously don’t want any. Our soldiers are not trained to police politically unstable nations, so why are we still there? This sounds more like a job for the United Nations, that way perhaps they can help take our troops out. Not only that, but our taxes (as my father has complained about) are going up due to the insane amount of revenue spent on keeping and supplying our guys over there. We keep getting calls for my brother from the Marines, saying they need him to enroll, but both my mom and my dad agree we’d rather move to Canada before let him join to be killed in a foreign country! We need to bring our brothers and sisters home!

Even though I knew V was about to get what was comin to him, having seen the movie, I still cried while reading the book. :*( . I thought the jail scene was a bit harsh and was a bit of an odd way of saying “I love you” but she did say she wanted to get over her fear of death. The fighting scene was incredible too! I guess seeing the movie first wasn’t all that regretable, because the fighting was a lot easier to picture. I know first hand that describing a brawl between characters is a feat in itself if you make the reader truly understand what’s going on. It’s even more amazing when they can picture it in their heads as it happens. Contrasting a scene from a movie and a few paragraphs in a book for one quick second; while a scene can happen in a matter of seconds or even minutes, reading all that onto a page can make things seem to happen in slow motion. When I read about a fight, I wait untill I can imagine each “frame” if you will and then when I’m done put it all together. When he came back to Evey I thought he was actually going to make it, but then as he proclaimed his love for her I knew he was a goner. The most satisfying part was the downfall of the Chancellor by far, because V finally got what he wanted to do done. He saved Britain (and in the larger picture, the world) from the potentially problematic dictatorship. Fantastic Book overall!!