Maus….well I have got to say that this has been my favorite novel/ comic book we have read this year so far! I feel that Maus is much like architecture. I believe that even though Maus is a well- known novel, people still believe it to be somewhat childish because the way that it is written. The comic book form that Maus has gives readers a feeling like they are actually apart of the story. Architecture is also criticized for its structure. If some buildings do not fit the ideal “standards” that critics place on architecture, then the building is somewhat disapproved. Strange buildings can have a more significant and more powerful meaning behind it than regular, plain buildings. This is the same for novels. Even though a comic book comes off as a more youthful reading tool, deeper meanings can be depicted from it.
The Scott McCloud comic strip things were read in class was very interesting to me. The part when he is talking about the mask was especially note- worthy to me. For example he says “when two people interact, they usually look directly at one another seeing their partner’s features in vivid detail. Each one sustains a constant awareness of his or her own face, but this mind- picture is not nearly so vivid; just a sketchy arrangement… a sense of shapes…a sense of central placement”. This means that when two people are looking at each other, they may think they look a certain way but they really are doing something completely opposite. This makes me wonder about when two people look at the same picture; do they see entirely separate things? I mean people can interpret things differently, but do they SEE different things too? I want to compare architecture to Maus and maybe compare something else, postmodernism maybe, I am not sure what else I want to discuss but it will most likely be along the lines of this.

Well, this is a bit late so I apologize to my group if they were trying to comment on my blog and it was not there. So I am just going to do it now, obviously. The article was interesting and I agreed with the entire thing pretty much. When Carr said that “Research once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes”, I could totally relate to that. Now I just need a computer with internet access. Every time I need to know something, I can easily just go online and look it up. It does not even matter what it is about. The web is very big and gets updated and just grows bigger everyday. For most people, the web helps save time and a lot of energy.
On the other hand, Carr mentions that “the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation”. This is very true because of experience. Since I usually go on the internet once a day now, I feel like I have way less patience for other things now. I feel like since the net goes so fast, that everything else should go that fast too. This also goes along with my concentration because I used to be able to sit on the couch doing my homework for like four hours straight without getting up and now I can barley stay concentrated for an hour at home.
Overall, I think the web was created and was intended to must ease everyone’s lives. However, for some people, it can make their ability to think for them to decrease and thus, make them less smart. My opinion on the subject is that I like the internet’s ability to make things faster and easier as long as people do not overuse it and it makes them loose concentration.

Ok, so the video we watched in class about the world and how it changed was very interesting. Most of it, I thought, was a given, but some of the facts were things I have never heard and it showed me how much our world has changed even in the last couple years. For example, in the video, it said that “half of what they [students] learn in their first year of study will be outdated in their third year of study”. I find this piece of information very interesting, just because it happened to me in math on Friday. My class was taking notes, and I thought I was doing the problem right, but then I found out that the rules had changed to do that type of problem, and so I have to relearn something I thought I knew. It was a coincidence because we watched this video during fourth period and I had math first period. Along with this, in Dr. Alan Kirby's article about "The Death of Postmodernism" he says that “Most of the undergraduates who will take ‘Postmodern Fictions’ this year will have been born in 1985 or after, and all but one of the module’s primary texts were written before their lifetime. Far from being ‘contemporary’, these texts were published in another world, before the students were born”. This, to me, is confusing. Why would we have to learn about something that we did not live through and that will end up changing later on down the road?
I believe that we are moving toward a new social paradigm because everything is becoming electronic. This, however, is not going to be the solution to all the world’s problems. Technology is transforming the world and is practically, taking over the world, in a sense. I think the technology is the power in country as of right now, and it will soon become all of our knowledge.

Alright, so first for all, I am really enjoying this book. I mean the book jumps all over and the each chapter is completely different than the one before it (well it seems that way). So far, it is one my favorite, but I am only on chapter twenty three. Anyways, the author says that the lady knows absolutely everything about God, and then the lady can not understand how to read the blueprint. “The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be. And yet, I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, “I’m sorry, but I never could read one of those things (4).” This is funny to me, because the lady just contradicted herself. God knows everything, so when she could not read the blueprint, something was wrong. She most definitely could not understand everything about God.
I believe this to be like Postmodernism because in that book, people want to control and be able to comprehend everything. The lady in Cat’s Cradle provides a clear example of how people think they know everything until something comes along that they have never seen before. In some way, I think, Postmodernism relates to this. In Postmodernism people believe that their way of life is the only way and that they know everything just because they know everything about their own culture. However, they do not realize that there are so many other cultures. Cat’s Cradle shows this by having a woman think that she gets everything until this weird object is in front of her, and she has no idea how to approach it because she was never taught to read it. Ok, well I hope that made sense and I hope that was enjoyable to someone!!!

Ok so I have many topics that I would like to talk about in my essay, but I just need to figure a way to get a thesis that covers over all of my ideas. I first decided that I want to write about the use of technology in Brave New World’s society and how it plays such a vital role in the way that the people live their lives. Then I would pull text from 1984 to show how this society contrasts from Brave New World. They are very different because 1984 bands the people from any form of technology and they believe it to be bad and corrupt, while Brave New World is all about advancing in technology. The second idea that I have is to compare Brave New World to Postmodernism and 1984. I believe that in some way Brave New World manipulates their people into doing weird and bizarre things. For instance, Huxley talks about how two people can not be together forever and that they can only have “one night stands” or that everyone has to believe what the government is telling them to believe. This is very similar to what Postmodernism explains about narratives. Narratives are told to a group of people to explain the way they live or do things. In 1984, the government forces people to forget the past and to only believe what Big Brother is telling them. They only know what the government tells them because that’s all they have ever been told. In all three books, the people or the societies are being manipulated into believing different things that the government thinks is true.

My thesis is very ruff because I still need to finish the book and I still need to understand the entire meaning of the overall book.
In Huxley’s Brave New World, she states how the people are controlled by the government and how technology plays an important role in society.

Postmodernism is an interesting book filled with many fascinating ideas about the world. In the book contain ideas about power and knowledge. This book can assist people in finding their way through this complex world. For this blog however, I will talk about how different stories can manipulate or control how a person lives his/ her life. For example, narratives are stories that “legitimize the society in which they are told”. It can “define what has the right to be said and done by the culture” (24-25). If a person hears a legend, he/ she has the right to go and spread the legend to other people. Myths are types of narratives that are told so that a group of people can understand their lifestyles, their heritage, or just why they do what they do. These stories are powerful because they have been chosen by important people and they are shared to others that way their cultures can live how they want to live. Other myths are called “grand narratives” and they are “big stories that claim to be able to account for, explain, and subordinate all lesser, little, local narratives” (29). This type of myth could seem a bit unbelievable. People, who believe certain myths and then they hear grand narratives that contradict or have changed the myths, become confused in what they thought was true and accurate. Because of grand narratives, minority discourse can be marginalized. This is because all the little stories are being combined into one big narrative, making the smaller or “minority” stories disappear. If people begin to believe the larger myths, they might forget about the little myths that may be more important to their culture or personality. By loosing sight of how people first viewed the world through myths, these stories will soon become meaningless and completely forgotten.

Brave New World is a different book. It is similar to 1984 in the way that the people are being controlled. For example, the people “were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly, how could they be stable (41)?” Apparently, if a person feels too strongly about a subject or an idea, that person will either end up insane or committing suicide. This lifestyle that the people live by HAS to be normal. They can not have a personality that has individuality. People have to be smart, but not to smart, or they have to be average. There is no acceptance for anything in between or below.
I think this society would be horrible to live in. Even though everyone person is their own person, he/ she can not have their own opinions, or have distinct qualities that define them. They can not do what they really want to do with their lives. It is however, somewhat of an improvement. More people are being born and they can live for longer, but for the most part it is a disgrace. At young ages the people are brain-washed into thinking ridiculous things, like that books are bad. This world is corrupted in the way that new technology is making them seem more superior but is really just making their society more complex and ridiculous. Not only are the people similar, but they will be punished if they want to be different.
Even though this world is technologically advanced, it still suffers. It suffers in the way our world thrives. Our world is good because everyone has a mind of his/ her own and everyone can have his/ her own opinions. In Brave New World the society can only function if every person obeys all of the rules. No one can rebel. Moreover, our world has freedom of speech, which gives us the right to say anything. Our two worlds are different and they both have some advantages and disadvantages over the other.

In class we discussed the dispute in Texas about what goes into U.S. History textbooks. Can history really be objective? Who gets to decide what curriculum goes into the history textbooks and why do people want to delete the past?
History can never be truly objective. No matter how neutral a person feels about a subject in history they will, most likely, have opinions. This would make a person bias. If I were to say that no political party is right or true, but then I say that I only vote for republicans, then I am not objective. I would be taking a side. Therefore, no one person can be neutral about every aspect in history or everyday life. When the government chooses whether to delete or keep a piece of history that is being biased. Some reviewers want to “replace Thurgood Marshall with Harriet Tubman or Sam Houston”. How is this being objective? It is not, thus, explaining how history can never be fully neutral.
Curriculum is made by the state government. Should the state government, however, tell a school what to or not to discuss. I believe that U.S. history should be about our history and if an event happened in our country, then it should be included in the curriculum. The facts that the government decides to leave out are facts from our background and our past. Why is it being questioned or trying to be erased? For example, a reviewer wrote that Cesar Chavez should be deleted from the history books. This man played a big role in our history. He “led a strike and boycott to improve working conditions for immigrant farmhands”. This is taught in fifth grade to be an example of citizenship. This reviewer believes that this is not an illustration of citizenship, when in fact it is. A man standing up people because he believes in something better is an excellent way to show citizenship. Why should this man, a leader of so many people, be deleted from the entire textbook?
I believe that any type or form of our country’s history should be kept in our books and nothing should be changed or deleted.