Silence

No Life, no words, no sounds. All that could be seen was death and space. A place that was once flooded with people, now desolate in the quiet and vast camp. Before all this I’ve seen and heard it, all of it, it terrifying screams of pain and agony, the machine-guns firing at fleeing men, the separation of families and loved ones. Men and boy are stripped of their dignity, and walking skeletons moving back and forth wondering where death would be waiting for them.

Sonder Kommandos

Forgive me, This choice was mine to make. To save myself and to continue life, I have chosen to do these tasks. Doing this may have temporarily preserved my life to return back to you all. Many lifeless bodies of children, women, and men stare at me with the face of fear and all I could do is thank God that your faces are not among them.

My eyes have seen the wickedness of men, the smell of smoke and flesh lodged in my senses. Please believe me that I do this out of love to return to your arms and regret to do this to my old friends and uncles. When this torture of continuous death is over, I will be returning to you. Wait for me. Your lost soul, Sonder Kommandos.

SS Soldier

“Remove your clothes and go in for a shower.” That’s the order I have given every minute. Women, men, children and the elderly stripped bare and sent to the chambers. I watched as they struggled to comprehend what was happening, and as the doors closed, I saw a boy, that looked no older than six watched as the door closed and squeezed his grandfather’s hand. His innocent, pure face frozen with terror and when I saw the doors started to close, our eyes met and something shattered.

      

I have never given any complaints or regrets of my position, but that small boy changed my views. I shook the feeling off and after twenty minutes, I looked through the small window and what I saw brought that feeling back to the surface. A pair of dark brown small eyes wide with terror laying underneath a pile of death and around me laughter. Was this what I did? Did I allow myself to murder all of the innocent? I shamefully wish that I had not joined this brigade of horror.

Death

The silence. It was time to move. The tears have stopped, and the screams have settled. A long fifteen minutes for their end to come around and no longer having a place to go back to, but to me. People feared me, some praised me, they say I am cruel, some say that I am a path to freedom. It is not my choice to make, but it is a task that I am left with to accomplish. My arms were open to gather those lost souls to lead them the last place they will every be. To lead them to the hope and dreams they have been waiting for, the dream of freedom.

Suitcase

I ran into my room, my mother yelling to pack as much as I can inside my small suitcase. While throwing my drawers and closets open, I was terrified of what was happening around us. I pondered on what to bring with me, having only enough room for five or seven items. I decided to take my doll that I had gotten on my fifth birthday, my bible, a dress, our family photo, one pair of shoes and clean undergarments. While my cousins were still packing, I go downstairs and everything was out of order, my mother rushing in and out of the kitchen to pack food for the journey, my brother was crying, and my father was packing work paper that he never needed.

  

We give the soldiers our luggage and get on the train. When we get off at the next station, we ask for our belongings but get rejected. I started crying, the only photo of our first and final trip to the ocean was so important to me. Father had finally gotten a day off of work and we had a fun time playing in the sand and in the water. A time we can never go back to.

Wiesel’s Father

I had to blink a few times to see if what I saw was real, my son standing in front of me. I felt pure relief that I had gotten to see him again. I called out to him, “Elie, my dear boy! How long it has been.” He smiled and came towards me with open arms. “Father, I’m finally able to meet you again.” This familiar feeling, oh how I wondered how I even forgot it. I started to cry, “Oh Elie, forgive me for leaving you alone in that forsaken place. I could not bare the pain any longer, but the pain of leaving you was even greater.”

“No, the blame is not your’s father, I have grown and shared the stories of us and those who have not survived. I have given my testimony to the evil and cruelty of the Germans and even now our story continues to spread.” All I have is my regret, he had always given me hope and believed that all would be well, but then I had given up to see the outside world again. “I thank you, my son, what I could not see or accomplished, you have done it in my stead. For that, I thank you deeply.

 

Many years we have had countless heroes that did not have powers at all. To begin our journey there are  things that you first need to know. Their presence is not always known because of death, but sometimes because they had a flaw that was shown clearly. Like Paul Walker, a man with a flaw for the need for speed, at which this cost him his life and his friend’s life as well. Michael Jackson, though he’s gone too, he was a great entertainer that everyone knew. But it was himself who did not believe that, changing himself that led to his downfall. But lets leave that now, and continue on, to the stories of Othello and Oedipus.

       

 

Othello and Oedipus were both quite catharsis. While dealing with the misinterpretation of their surroundings, they both commit different crimes that were not smiled upon. From Othello murdering Desdemona and then finding out it was a scam, we feel pity towards him for not knowing what was happening because he believed what he was told. Oedipus was also in about the same predicament, he had married his mother without his knowledge towards it after trying to avoid doing that. We pity him because he had good intentions for leaving his home to try and prevent it. Both were unaware of how their fate was being played out with Othello and Oedipus was following different rumors that was happening without even knowing.

Othello and Oedipus both had an hamartia during their stories. Finding out about an event or some rumor that had been spoken to many others is not something that they would be proud of. Othello’s downfall had involved a man crafty and evil who lured Othello onto the path of wrong by using false words and false emotions that would then lead Othello to believe every word and to eventually kill a loved one. Oedipus’s downfall consisted in him following a path that he thought he had avoided after finding out his fate from the oracle at Delphi. This story also leads Oedipus to also harm the two people who had given him his life that had taken the wrong turn.

But at the end of their stories, the two men have had their anagnorisis of truth that had been hidden to both of them through out the journeys. Othello’s story comes to a near conclusion when he finds out that he had been tricked by his trusted and honest partner so he could get revenge on Othello. When the deed was done, Othello discovered that he had done in the innocent person who had honestly loved him and swore loyalty only to him. That could not be undone. Oedipus had also figured out that he had not only married the person he loved for many years, but he had married the person he tried to avoid, his mother, his actual birth-mother. That the man that he had killed was his father just as the prophecy had said.

A sad tale indeed for the innocent that have fallen with disgrace. From the love shone towards the one who had also loved him and following the sad trail of jealousy and anger. Instead of following that path that was laid before Othello, a choice he could have made was to ask Desdemona and Cassio himself and see for his eyes and see with his ears if it was true or not. Trying to do the right thing from leaving home but it was the wrong decision to make. Oedipus had tried to follow what he thought was right. But what he could have done was stayed home and investigate if he was actually going to marry the mother and kill the father that he had lived with since he was a baby or to see if they were his birth-parents at all, and if they weren’t, Oedipus would not have been afraid of his fate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Walker

https://prezi.com/izquhva-x8co/michael-jackson-modern-day-tragic-hero/

We all know Valentines Day as a time for love, romance and a time to be with your special someone and everyone wants to evince that you love that person. But can you ever envisage anything other than that alone. The past surrounding Valentines Day is different than you would’ve expected it to be. Beginning around third century ancient Rome, was the festival of Lupercalia, a fertility celebration commemorated annually on February 15.  Emperor Claudius II had outlawed marriage thinking that it will be fractious and that single men made better soldiers. But a Priest named Valentine opposed him and continued to perform marriages in secret until Claudius had discovered what he was doing and ordered to put him to death for infraction. On the day of his execution, Valentine wrote a letter to the daughter of his jailer and at the end he signed, “From Your Valentine”, which is still used by many today.

The origins of this festival of candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody — and a bit muddled. The holiday was also considered a pre-christian pagan festival, celebrating Feb. 13 to 15. The men would slaughter two male goats for fertility and a dog for purity for tribute and to show deference to Lupa, the she-wolf who raised the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. During the festivities, the women would be whipped with the hides of the animals they had just killed for the sacrifice. The Roman romantics “were drunk. They were naked,” says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them,” Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile. Years later, the aspect of the holiday grew sweeter. During the Middle Ages, it was said that February 14th was the beginning of birds’ matting season. So it was deduced to be a day of romance. Pope Gelasius I recast this pagan festival as a Christian feast day circa 496, declaring February 14 to be St. Valentine’s Day.

 

 

 

 

 

Valentines Day is a day comes once a year and on it we show our love to those important to us. Candy, cards, flowers and other small or large gifts are exchanged to see that visage of joy and happiness on your special someone. For many generations, loving someone openly was something that they did not believe could be done. The changes the world has been though was like a viaduct that allowed so many to show what they have been trying to hide for so long can now come out into the open. Imagining what they might have gone through to show their love makes us seem to not have cared about it more. Just to deviate some of your time to spend it with your family or even just a friend can show how much you appreciate them and the time spent together. More than the small goodies that come with the holiday, the most important aspect of Valentines Day is the love that can be shown long after the day had gone by.

 

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/valentinesdayhistory.html

http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133693152/the-dark-origins-of-valentines-day

http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2016/02/st_valentines_day_-_ancient_ro.html

Synthetic food’s have been proved to show that there would be an proliferate in food and animals will be impervious with only the use of muscle. The development of  synthetic food, allows to bring complete proteins into the body that it could not produce. So many products can be improved without the unnecessary animal slaughtering. Synthetic foods are created by the combination of food substances and subjecting these substances to different modern processes in order to obtain the desired food product. “We need to reduce carbon emissions and toxic inputs, use less land and water, combat pests, and increase soil fertility,” plant geneticist Pamela Ronald, director of the Laboratory for Crop Genetics Innovation at the University of California, Davis has said. Giving that, The proteins contained in these artificial foods were derived from natural foods. Synthetic foods are created by the combination of food substances and subjecting these substances to different modern processes in order to obtain the desired food product.

Using synthetic food will help in an increase of animals and less toxic chemicals in our food. It is even purported the possibility of self-fertilizing syn-bio plants, which the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development writes “could revolutionize agriculture and would significantly decouple agriculture from the oil industry.” The proteins contained in these artificial foods were derived from natural foods. Synthetic foods are created by the combination of food substances and subjecting these substances to different modern processes in order to obtain the desired food product. This will also help obviate the ingredients in certain foods and allow things to have more nutrients that are missing. “In the face of energy and water constraints, a squeeze on cultivable land, and an imperative to limit greenhouse gas emissions, syn-bio could also transform the way we farm and eat,” writes Garthwaite.

By reading what others have commented on the topic of synthetic foods, my personal ideas will have confer with professionals.  Synthetic foods is a way that in different countries and states will stay the same and although it might deviate from the normal food that we already eat, it will provide positive effects on everyone and on the planet. This does not mean just meat can be changed. Plants such as, herbs, vegetables, and fruits will also be created in syn-food related form, using the same process and materials for such improvements. Agriculture, after all, accounts for 70 percent of all water use. The systems of mono culture farming also have a downside, with pesticide and antibiotic being used, plus factory-farmed livestock, these wreak havoc on human, animal and environmental health.

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-turow/you-need-to-know-all-abou_b_9237578.html

http://www.grocery.com/synthetic-foods/

Studies have shown that teenagers are not getting the sleep that is needed to begin the day. Many do not get the eight hours of sleep required in order to stay incisive during classes and during work hours. Given the amount of work students need to do and the amount of time they have to do it, including after school activities, they become sleep-deprived and stress builds up because of it, the anatomy of the body may become sick. According to Judith Owens, a sleep expert at a children’s medical center in Washington, D.C., starting school later in the day is an effective way to reduce the negative consequences of sleep loss. Most schools follow a certain time rule in which different grades go to school at different times. The pediatricians group recommends that schools start at 8:30 a.m. or later. Today, more than eight out of 10 schools start earlier than that, some even starting at early as 7 a.m. Many student athletes have early practices at 6 a.m. For all these students, fatigue is a way of life. At one school district in the Chicago area, classes start earlier as students get older. Elementary schools start at 8:15 a.m., middle schools at 8 a.m. and high schools at 7:45 a.m.

Some students perform sports or other extracurricular activities so returning home at 10:00 pm is not a big surprise. “ The 10-year-old who went to bed at 9 p.m. becomes the 13-year-old who can’t get to sleep until 11,” Owens said. To excise some activities and have punctilious planning to figure out what the schedule would be, it would mean more sleep to get energy. The lack of sleep is not the only thing during school or work hours that is unhealthy, so is eating. Schools are having lunches too early. During lunch hours, students have lunches in the morning at 10:00 am or at 11, leaving them very hungry when they return home and ask for something to eat. This causes them to not eat at dinner with the family. “At this age, kids don’t talk to you that much — so you look forward to having that one meal together,” said Diane Zezulak, the mother of a freshman.

 

In my opinion, to be concise, rest is the best way for students to stay healthy and awake so they can learn. To complete the tasks that were assigned and to try to get enough sleep, students have a harder time getting out of bed in the morning and staying awake through the classes. This type of thing is fractious, many students, parents and friends want opportunities to spend time together when they have the chance, to talk and have fun. Children and adults both need interaction with each other. Being tired to do anything and cranky to have time to do fun thing with the family is something that needs to be taken care of for the health and well being for everyone especially younger kids. This may imprint on them that it is a normal thing and will continue to do so until their methods are corrected by a superior. I myself, do this sort of thing, staying up late to finish an big assignment due, and be completely exhausted when waking up and going to school only to strive to stay awake to pay attention in class. Sleep is one of the most important elements a person needs for great health.

 

For many high school students, exhaustion is a part of life

https://newsela.com/articles/sleepy-students/id/5128/

The recent presidential election created a new form of media, “Fake News”. Fake News is information that has been manipulated by a writer to create a story that draws an audience. Fake News sounds true, and the place where it is published looks like a real news page, but it is all created to make money or create chaos. In the article, “Fake news author is fired, apologizes to those ‘disappointed’ by his actions,” by Joe Marusak,  Cam Harris, a recent Davidson Collage grad and Republican intern, states, “While the initial motivation behind launching a fake news site as financially based, the lesson I learned from the experience is far more important and it’s one that cant be covered  in a tweet or even a NYT article.” Harris was the author of a fake news article, “BREAKING: Tens of thousands of fraudulent Clinton votes found in Ohio warehouse.” that may or may not have swayed voters. His argument evinced the mantra “the election is rigged” and :was eventually shared with 6 million people.” “Fake” news can be used for political propaganda or for financial gain, but it is ethically irresponsible. Harris and Davidson Collage apologized for their action; however, there is no way to retract  the information people have read and shared. Many are unable to deduce that the news found in these articles are not true.

In the article, the author uses numbers and statistics to induce the reader to look closely at the news for validity. The fact that “Harris is a 23 year old” who created such chaos at such a young indicates the issues with fake news. The author may be saying that the younger generation does not realize how dangerous this type of news can be. The mention of  ‘Tens of thousands’ of fraudulent Clinton votes” was an impetus  for the article to be “eventually shared with 6 million people,” Harris use of such large numbers caused people to believe and spread the news. In his statement, Harris’ use of the phrase “There are large-scale changes occurring in America” makes the reader weary of fake news articles that are intractable once they are in the mainstream media.

Knowing of this event and knowing how irresponsible someone can be, allows me to understand how to be aware of what I chose to believe and what I know. Reading Harris’s article gives me a small portion of what can come from false information given to thousands of people all over the world and to those who composed and posted these counterfeit facts. I give my opinion of this matter to show my dissatisfaction for this and hope someone doesn’t do something so impetuous as well. The consequences given to Harris is acceptable seeing what happened due to his negligence and his urge to gain popularity and financial gain. This strife will still continue without our knowledge and many more innocent people will still fall for their antics, causing more misconduct to fall upon many. Please be cautious of what content is presented on sites.

 

Charlotte Observer article: “Fake news author is fired; apologizes to those ‘disappointed’ by his actions

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article127391619.html

Plolifacts 2016 Lie of the Year: Fake News

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/dec/13/2016-lie-year-fake-news

 

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