Letters

In this blog entry, I'll be showing you the letters we had to write about living in the 1930's:

Mary Ann:

I’ve got to tell you, living around these parts is really depressing. This town really is a little sad, actually. Since this Great Depression thing was announced on the radio, I’ve seen lots of people living in the Street, back alleys, etc. My mother says that, because we are a “good family”, we have this big house, three cooks, two nurses, a guard and a butler. Does that mean that they’re a “bad families”? No, I don’t think so. My father says that those people are just passing though a hard time.

Anyway, what I was going to tell you is that my house has just been restored! I love to be at home, you know. It´s really big, with lots of rooms and a huge backyard to play all day long. The funniest thing is when you get hungry, because you have to cross the whole house just to eat. It’s really tiring, but it’s funny at least. Also, the bedrooms are now bigger that before, and so are the bathrooms and the living room. The only thing left alike is a small, isolated room behind the kitchen that my mom left for one of the employees to stay if they want. The problem of having this big house is that it has to be under surveillance at all times, or there has to be someone in every corner of the property, just for safety, because my mom says that a bad person or a Negro could get in at any moment. To warn us that someone entered the property, the guard has a dog, and there’s a bell in the courtyard. I don’t know why they bother to do this. I think that we should have to use the room at the back of the kitchen to welcome people to the house, since it’s so big and all. The problem is that my mother says that we shouldn’t bring those kinds of people to the house, especially Negroes.

Well, I hope that you are doing great

Sincerely,

Vito

Mary Ann:

It’s been a long time since I last wrote to you. How’s everyone over there? Anyway, I’d like to tell you something great that happened this weekend, so great that we had a party on Sunday, after church. My father got promoted! Now he’s the main surgeon at the town’s hospital. The only problem, the only nuisance about this is that we wont spend much time together, since the hospital is really far away and he’s got to be there earlier. To balance this, I get to spend a lot more time with my mother, because she resigned of her job at the bakery. She said that this depression thing is putting people on a diet, so they wont eat pies and cakes anymore. Well, I guess that what she did was to change jobs, because now she is like my dad’s manager. Since he is very, very forgetful, so he sometimes forgets to charge people for his services, so my mom now takes care of that. Also, now she goes to pay our bills, collect my dad’s paychecks, and a lot of other things that my dad usually forgets. I guess that’s pretty tiring too!

What made me sad is that we wont go to the lake on my holidays to fish like we always did. I really liked to go fishing with my dad, since it’s the only thing we did together lately. Do you do anything like that with any one of your parents? I guess you should…

Always waiting for your reply

Vito

Mary Ann:

I’m writing this letter to you from the detention room. Want to know why? My friend Phillip and I broke a window at the math class today! The senior students were teaching us geometry, really boring stuff, so we tried to survive that boredom. We began playing with our copybooks, hitting each other. Since there were like a hundred kid in the room, and we were at the back, none of the “teachers” could see us pushing each other, throwing one another’s, hitting each other with our copybooks, and some other funny stuff we were doing. Sometimes, one of the “teachers” would hear us laughing, so he went to our desks, gave us a brutal slap at the back of the head, yelled at us “stop fooling around and concentrate!” and went back to where he originally was. Even though it hurt like hell, as son as he got back, we resumed our silliness. When Phillip hit me with his copybook at my face, all that playing turned into fighting. We pushed each other harder, but since I’m stronger than him, I made him fell off his chair. He went straight into the wall, and with his elbow he smashed the window into pieces. It sounded so loud that the “teacher” immediately noticed us. He stopped the lesson, took us by the ear and drove us to the detention room. He threw us in, and of everything that he yelled at us, the only thing that I heard was that we were going to miss this afternoon’s the football match.

At that moment, I got furious at Phillip, because I was going to play at that match! The fact that I’ll be missing will piss off the whole team, and they’ll probably try to beat me up later. Has something like that ever happened to you? Probably not, but I guess it would be funny to have a common anecdote.

It is nice to catch up with you,

Vito

And here's the one that should be used for grading:

Mary Ann:

This will be the last letter that I’m going to send you. Around these parts, I see lots of poor people, trying to make a living out of anything. The other day, my dad hired some guys that were living at a park nearby, to help him take care of the garden. They were two, a Scottish guy whose name I can’t recall now, and a guy from this town, named Colin. Both of them are now living at the room behind the kitchen. I can see in their faces that they’re truly grateful of what my dad is doing for them.

Anyway, I want to know how are you doing at the United States? I saw the other day at the telly that this Depression is hitting pretty strong, and not only at the US. Canada, Australia, France, the Germans, my beloved Italy, a country named Chile too (I even heard it was a really hard blow to them), and even my new home, the UK! Nobody escaped from it! I hope that you haven’t had to suffer that whole mess. I haven’t, since my dad’s doing well at his job and the fact that we came with a little fortune from Cesarò, at Sicily. The fact that we’re immigrants has not made our life over here easier, though. Even though we got here like five or six years ago, strangers still look down on us. That contempt has recently increased, especially with the looming war against the Fascists. Nobody has announced anything yet, but you can realize that there’s nothing left to do to avoid it. There are lots of issues going on these days. This crisis that threw everyone out of their homes, this incoming war… I don’t know, I guess I shouldn’t bother you with this anymore. Well, I hope that your doing fine.

Sincerely,

Vito

To Kill A Mockingbird Summary

On this blog entry I'm telling you a little bit about Chapter 8-9 of the book "To Kill a Mockingbird", by Harper Lee:

8

In this Chapter, and for the first time in years, Maycomb county suffers a real winter. It even snows, an event rare enough for school to be closed. Jem and Scout collected as much snow as they could from Miss Maudie’s yard to their own. Since they didn't have enough snow to make a full showman, they made one out of dirt and covered it with snow. They tried to make it look like Mr. Avery, a weird man who lives down the street. The figure’s likeness to Mr. Avery is so strong that Atticus tells them to disguise it. Jem places Miss Maudie’s sunhat on its head and sticks her hedge clippers in its hands.

That night, Atticus wakes Scout and helps her put on her bathrobe and coat and goes outside with her and Jem. When they arrive, they see that Miss Maudie’s house is on fire. The neighbors tried to help her save her furniture, and the firemen arrived in time to stop the fire from spreading to other houses, but Miss Maudie’s house burned to the ground. In the confusion, someone covered Scout with a blanket. When Atticus later asks her about it, she says she had no idea who put it over her. Later, Jem realizes that Boo Radley put it on her, and he reveals the whole story about the knothole, the presents, and the mended pants for Atticus. Atticus tells them to keep it to themselves, and Scout, realizing that Boo was behind her a while ago, nearly throws up.

Despite having lost her house, Miss Maudie is cheerful the next day. She tells the children how much she hated her old house and that she is planning to build a smaller one to have a larger garden. She says that she wishes she had been there when Boo put the blanket on Scout to catch him in the act.

9

At school, Scout nearly starts a fight with a classmate named Cecil Jacobs after Cecil declares that “Scout Finch’s daddy defends niggers.” Atticus has been asked to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. It is a case he cannot hope to win, but he tells Scout that he must argue it to uphold his sense of justice and self-respect.

At Christmastime, Atticus’s brother, Jack, comes to stay with Atticus for a week during the holidays. Scout generally gets along well with Uncle Jack, but when he arrives in Maycomb, she begins cursing in front of him (a habit that she has recently picked up). After supper, Jack has Scout sit on his lap and he warns her not to curse in his presence. On Christmas Day, Atticus takes his children and Jack to Finch’s Landing, a rambling old house in the country where Atticus’s sister, Alexandra, and her husband live. There, Scout endures Francis, Alexandra’s grandson, who had been dropped off at Finch’s Landing for the holiday. Scout thinks Francis is the most “boring” child she has ever met. She also has to put up with the prim and proper Alexandra, who insists that Scout dress like a lady instead of wearing pants.

One night, Francis tells Scout that Dill is a runt and then calls Atticus a “nigger-lover.” Scout curses him and beats him up. Francis tells Alexandra and Uncle Jack that Scout hit him, and Uncle Jack spanks her without hearing her side of the story. After they return to Maycomb, Scout tells Jack what Francis said and Jack becomes furious. Scout makes him promise not to tell Atticus, however, because Atticus had asked her not to fight anyone over what is said about him. Jack promises and keeps his word. Later, Scout overhears Atticus telling Jack that Tom Robinson is innocent but doomed, since it’s inconceivable that an all-white jury would ever acquit him.

English Podcast

This is about the activity related to the novel "How to kill a Mockingbird", by Harper Lee. Well, This is a podcast that answers this three questions:


What do they do in the Boo Radley game? Do you think the game is an accurate version of what happens in the Radleys' home? How can the social context affect children's games?

Short Story

I felt a heavy blow on the back of my head, and two arms pushing me around. As a door closed behind me, I lost conciousness. At dawn, the shy little sunrays woke me. Here I am,  lying in an unknown room, hancuffed. Someone is coming here, for I hear people getting closer. Because the lights stunned me, I didn’t recognize him at first, but then I realized who was I dealing with. Dmitry Sergéevich Sokolov, a dreaded gangster from this side of LA. I had never asked him for a favour before, so I asked him -Why am I tied up in here?-. He told me -You are here, Michael, because I know your secret. I know you have been sharing intel with the politsiya.That really annoys me...- -Sorry, but I am not Michael. My name is Jack!- -Don’t lie to me!- 

Actually, I don’t know any Michael...

To be continued...

U.S Jets Strike on Libyan sites. NATO is responsible.

Last week, three Libyan anti-aircraft sites were bombed by U.S military aircrafts, during the night. U.S military officials and the Pentagon told NBC News that, after handing the mission to NATO, U.S jets have continued striking Libyan sites. Both also streesed that it was the third strike in the past week.

Most of the anti-aircraft sites have been destroyed, but lots of Libyan anti-aircraft launchers were still hidden, until Gadhafi's forces repositioned them, to pose a threat to NATO's aircrafts.

According to a senior official, these jets have been part of the mission since the handoff in April 4th. He said they forgot to mention it.

Within this omission from NATO and the US military forces, lots of jet,ammunition, weaponry and else might be hidden. Until this situation, nobody knew about this "backup" supplies for NATO's troop son Libya.

Neither US nor NATO assume the responsability upon this subject, and they insist that this jet are only assigned to the "no-fly zones", and that these have not been part of any strike upon Libyan sites. They also added that these jet are allowed to fire on any enemy defenses as part of this assignment on the "no-fly zones".

News Bias

News Title:   Russian-born scientist Win Nobel for GRAPHENE

Source :      Russian-born Scientists Win Nobel for Graphene

Main points:

• Two Russian-born scientist, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, won the 2010 Nobel Physics Prize
• Graphene, the material found, might be the "green material" that scientists have been looking for

Bias Detected:


Bias by word choice - DICTION:

"[...]next generation super material[...]"

Bias throught names and titles:

"...laureates began their careers as physicists in Russia but now work at the University of Manchester in Britain..."


Bias through Statistics:
"[...]10 million Swedish kronor ($1.49 million, 1.09 million euros)[...]

Post-Modernism

At the end of this century the big questions about reality  and being human rise with unexpected power. We ask even more agonizingly: What does it mean to be human? How do human beings fit into this vast cosmos? Where to from here? We live in a time of great uncertainty--caught in the transition from a bold and passionate optimism about the future to a deep skepticism and spirit of nihilism about findingany universal ways for mankind. We live in a postmodern time