Shooting an Elephant: George Orwell

this reading selection was interesting. Not my favorite piece. This obviously took place in the early nineteen hundreds first because of the time George Orwell lived and secondly the feel and picture you get from the writing. I don't think he should have killed the poor elephant regardless of what the natives had to say. The elephant was peaceful and not hurting anyone at the time he shot at it so why shoot it? At the end of the writing he states "I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool." why should you care what people think about you? especially by the people who have apparently ragged on you for quite some time. To me, if you're going to shoot an elephant you should know the right way to do it instead of letting it slowly die and suffer for an hour and a half and shooting it an extra few times only to put it in more pain than before. As you can tell I do not like animal cruelty and i do not agree at all with this story whether the author wanted to kill the elephant or not, he still did.

A Fable for Tomorrow: Rachel Carson

As I first started reading this selection i thought to myself, wow I'd like to live in a place that beautiful and simple; it seems so perfect.  As i read on it turned into a disaster.  I felt a little sad but it interested me more.  I wanted to know what happened.  It sounded a lot like the Black Plague to me.  All the animals dying, all the women, children and men dying just from being outside and then hours later dying.  At the end, the author mentions that the events have happened in the past.  The author also says "A grim specter has crept upon us almost as unnoticed, and this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we all shall know."  One day in the future we will experience something along these lines.  Fir instance 2012;  the Apocalypse is the new most feared thing.  Personally i don't believe in it but there are people who are getting ready for the end of the world which is in a couple of years.

The Longman Reader: Chapter 1

Reading chapter one, i thought many things about it.  When it mentioned the essay on "how to Say Nothing in 500 Words" I thought it was interesting so i turned to page 316 to look at it.  It ended up being pretty interesting about why to abolish college football.  I also laughed at it because well, lets face it.  It's kind of funny.  Then i got to the section about evaluating the images in a book, writing piece, etc. and i didn't realize how important the pictures actually were.  The pictures can say so much about a writing or a story.  the journal entry question is an interesting question.  Television has positive and negative effects on children.  It's not all fighting, shooting, violence, sex, etc. there are educational programs such as the Discovery Channel or the History Channel.  The negative side is to actually get your children to sit and watch them and not cartoons.  I'm hoping that the last paragraph of chapter 1 is true and I'll be able to perfect my writing skills.