What could have been done differently at Virginia Tech?

As you all might have heard, there was a horrific shooting at Virginia Tech a few days ago. Many innocent people both young and old were killed and very injured. The investagation is still being taken care of and closely looked at. Some of the students that I have heard on the news and read online were aware of what was going on as it was happening after being able to check their email early in the morning. The school sent out an email and tried to worn the students of what was going on and to keep them cautious and stay locked inside their dorm rooms. Others were still walking to class with much precaution. Many people are wondering if the school did enough to keep everyone and every classroom safe. What do you think? Do you think there is anything else the school could do to keep people aware and safe? What about keeping people calm? What do you think about schools teaching their students what to do in case of a lock down or emergency?

Emily W.

Final Thoughts on Catcher?

Now that we have finished reading Catcher, what are your view points on the book? How did you like the way J.D. Salinger portrayed Holden and how do you like the way he wrote the book? What did you like about it? What didn't you like?

I liked the book especially the ending - it seemed very emotional and I liked how much Holden had changed by the end.

Josh T.

Is Holden postponing the inevitable?

The other day in Mr. Wickersham’s class we talked about how the title Catcher in the Rye relates to Holden and the rest of the book. Holden is stuck in between being a child and an adult. When Phoebe asks him what his ideal job would be, he says he would love to be a catcher in the rye. He wishes he could still be a child and he does things, like scratching off the bad words in the museum, to prevent other kids from losing their childhood innocence and having to become an adult.

Have you ever done anything because you didn’t want to grow up, or because you didn’t want someone else to have to grow up? If so, why? If not, can you understand why someone, like Holden, would do this, or do you think it is completely crazy and pointless? Do you think Holden was avoiding the inevitable or do you think some people just need the extra time to figure things out? Please explain.

Pic from: www.bittersweetfatkid.co.uk/catcher_holden.jpg

Elizabeth

Stem Cell Research

Tonight I went to the Stem Cell Research Foundation: International event at the Detroit Science Center, and I learned many interesting things about what stem cells are about and what they have to do with what the research is all about.
My dad and Bubbie are both co-chairmen and presidents of the Stem Cell Research Foundation: International. They are very excited about what they are doing, because they can help people in the future. My papa, his dad and her husband were killed from pancreatic cancer 2 years and 2 months ago. This is a motivation for them to help save lives.
What I was wondering was, what do you think about stem cell research, and what are your positions on it?

Editor's Note: An issue surrounding stem cell research is one similar to that surrounding abortion - namely, when does life begin? It is the contention of some believers that life begins at the moment of conception, and that the initial embryonic cells that divide are part of the human living organism - a human soul. The 4-5 day old cells are ones that can be used in stem cell research. President Bush has limited the use of stem cell research to only a few stem cell lines, and that any labs that receive federal money cannot conduct research on other stem cell lines and expect to receive more federal money. The following diseases can possibly be helped by stem cell research:
Alzheimer's disease, Heart disease, Cancer, Spinal cord injuries, Rheumatoid Arthritis
Lupus, Scleroderma, Diabetes, and Parkinson's disease.

Links:
National Institute of Health's Stem Cell page: http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/
Student Society for Stem Cell Research: http://www.ssscr.org/
About.com's site on stem cell research: http://alzheimers.about.com/od/research/a/stem_cell.htm
Stem Cell Research Foundation's FAQ page: http://www.stemcellresearchfoundation.org/About/FAQ.htm

Follow up: (This is a reply from JJ's dad, Dr. Alan Bittker, about the benefits of stem cell research) -"As you said, we are very excited about our progress with the stem cell foundation. We really believe that the research will make a dramatic impact and improve the medical treatments and cures during the next decade. While some people in the community are hesitant or opposed to support embryonic stem cell research, we were very encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive reaction we received following the kickoff event. The 'typical' negative reaction is usually due to the fact that some people believe that every cell – regardless of circumstance – could become a human life. And, because the research is conducted on cells from embryos, they believe a potential life was somehow eliminated.

Our support of this research is based on the fact that scientists, in less than ten years, have been able to create and grow the following from basic stem cells: beating heart tissue, insulin-producing cells, human heart valves and human tissue that reproduces with its own blood supply. Each of these discoveries has the potential to change the face of medicine and offer cures for future generations. Additionally, we are encouraged that nearly 75% of the U.S. population supports this research due to its enormous potential. For all these reasons, we believe we are on the right track and have the momentum needed to raise funds and accelerate this critical research."

We'd like to thank Dr. Bittker for taking the time to work with us on this issue.

So what's the big deal?

I have been wondering why this novel is so revolutionary, so I guess I want to see what other people think.

In class we have discused the events in the novel Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Sallanger in great depth. Also we have seen how the novel affected American literature forever. Many students after reading have asked themselves "why is this story so famous?" or "these events that Holden experiences are not that crazy, why is it so interesting?"

Why do you think Catcher in the Rye is so famous, and what elements of this story are so unique compared to literature that we've studied before this novel?

Josh "Slam Dunk" Smith

Temporary Moment of Insanity

In reading Catcher in the Rye, we all know that Holden is a madman. However, he never comes out and straight forwardly admits that. In all his crazy moments he simply points fingers at other so called "phonies" and psychos.

Do you think your insanity is open to interpetation by others the way others see sides of Holden he doesn't see himself? Have you had certain instances where you were put into the situation where others might feel you are slightly insane? Help us out by explaining.

Lisa

Holden: Love him or hate him?

Now that we have finished reading The Catcher In the Rye, what is your take on the book?

Did you like the main character, Holden Caulfield or did you secretly despise him? Many people have pointed out that Holden is a hypocrite. He constantly expresses his hate towards people who are phony, yet it is clear that Holden himself is a phony.

Also, what are your final thoughts on the book? Did you like The Catcher In The Rye? Why or why not?

C-Kal

A Catcher website: http://www.euronet.nl/users/los/books.html

Copycat threats? What's the deal?

On Monday, there was the Virginia Tech shooting with 33 people dead. But, this past week there have been over a dozen threats to Oakland County Schools.

• Berkshire was closed on Friday due to a threat.
• Groves was on la perimeter lockdown at the end of the day (code white) on Thursday, and there was an investigation into a classroom discussion earlier in the week.
• Sunday night e-mail threat (even before the shooting) at four Rochester schools brought out the bomb sniffing dogs
• The dogs came back Wednesday night to two Walled Lake High Schools, and three more threats were issued on Thursday.
• Oxford received warnings on Tuesday at a middle school.

Why do people think it is funny to make a threat? Just so it can close school and no one has to school? What do you think about all these threats recently?

Paris

Articles: http://www.dailytribune.com/stories/042007/loc_threats001.shtml

Oakland County Prosecutor says that fake threats are no joke, will be taken and punished severely: http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/12520802/detail.html

Editor's Note - In an article in the Daily Tribune, it can cost "$200,000 to $600,000 to close an entire district and add security measures", according to Oakland Schools Superintendent Vickie Markavitch. So please, in our cash-strapped district, don't do anything stupid. And even if money wasn't an issue, if you need someone to talk to or have an issue, we can find ways to work it out. Violence isn't the answer.

Virginia Tech Tragedy

On April 16, 2007, there was a shooting at Virginia Tech University. The shooter came in and shot students with no warning. He killed 32 innocent teachers and students and then killed himself. The shooter had a roommate who said that he was not a popular kid; he was quiet and had almost no friends.

How does a person get to a mindset where they would take another person's life and after killing one person, how does he/she have no remorse or conscience and keep killing others?

Why do you think that this very quiet kid would do such a thing? Even his roommates who lived with him for the past 7 months did not think he could do something so horrible just like the kids at Columbine didn’t think that the shooters would do such a thing as well.

Tripp

Yahoo articles: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070417/media_nm/television_massacre_dc

http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070418/tc_infoworld/87786_1

D.C. Trip - FDR Memorial

Thought you might like to see some photos from the FDR Memorial in D.C.

Fairness in the Crucible?

In reading The Crucible so far, communism is connected directly with witchcraft. People in the Red Scare during the time after WWII act a lot like the people in the time of witch trials. Innocent people are accused, jailed, and killed.

Do you guys think this is fair in terms of The Crucible? Communism?

Lisa R.

Rebecca Nurse's trial.

Photos taken from: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SAL_PHO.HTM

Your take on the play

Now that many of you have seen the play, experienced the intense on-stage drama, tell us what you thought.

Ms. Z. mentioned the symbolic lighting - did you notice the red and blue lights that came on at certain times? Why did they come on and for whom? She also mentioned the stage was symbolic. I've got my own take on those three trees in the background. Did those branches remind you of flailing hands reaching towards the sky? Kinda Picasso/Guernica like? That might be a stretch. But it also made me think of something else which I'll save for later.

How about the characters? Did they act the way you thought they would? Did you know any of the actors personally and did that knowledge interfere w/ the characters the portrayed? I thought Paul's portrayal of Danforth was bordering on comical, especially with his facial gestures. How about Spence and Mickey? Awesome job, guys. Josh was behind the stage and Andrew was techie on the spot.

So, give us your take on the play. Different than the movie? Of course.

Was GN and GL too real?

This past week in Excel, we watched Good Night and Good Luck. How did the incorporation of actual stock footage add to the overall credibility of the movie?

Did the stock footage go “over the edge” –becoming too real for a movie?

How has culture in the United States changed since the time portrayed in this movie?

Do we have a different mindset? Are we less ignorant?

Jared P.

Good Night and Good Luck Blog - 3rd try's a charm

Choose three statements – one from each speech – and discuss how each statement can be applied to our world and political or social situations today.

" No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine; and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Good night, and good luck."
– See it Now broadcast, March 9 1954


If we confuse dissent with disloyalty — if we deny the right of the individual to be wrong, unpopular, eccentric or unorthodox — if we deny the essence of racial equality then hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa who are shopping about for a new allegiance will conclude that we are concerned to defend a myth and our present privileged status. Every act that denies or limits the freedom of the individual in this country costs us the . . . confidence of men and women who aspire to that freedom and independence of which we speak and for which our ancestors fought."

– Ford Fiftieth Anniversary Show, CBS and NBC, June 1953

“We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.

For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally. If there were to be a competition in indifference, or perhaps in insulation from reality, then Nero and his fiddle, Chamberlain and his umbrella, could not find a place on an early afternoon sustaining show. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done--and are still doing--to the Indians in this country. But that would be unpleasant. And we must at all costs shield the sensitive citizens from anything that is unpleasant.

I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry's program planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. I have reason to know, as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is--an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate.

I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch wailing wall, where longhairs constantly moan about the state of our culture and our defense. But I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in which we live. I would like to see it done inside the existing framework, and I would like to see the doing of it redound to the credit of those who finance and program it. Measure the results by Nielsen, Trendex or Silex-it doesn't matter. The main thing is to try. The responsibility can be easily placed, in spite of all the mouthings about giving the public what it wants. It rests on big business, and on big television, and it rests at the top. Responsibility is not something that can be assigned or delegated. And it promises its own reward: good business and good television.

To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Speech at Radio-Television News Directors Association, Chicago, October 15, 1958.

Minimum 250 words total response.

Is history repeating itself?

We started reading The Crucible today, what are you initial reactions to the book after reading Act One? And do you think [the situation it portrays] is another example of history repeating itself? If so, what event do you think it was repeating?

What do you think will happen at the end of this novel?

Lauren

The Crucible's characters - who do you love?

Today in our seminar classes we started reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller. As it mentions on the back of our books, "Mr. Miller's plays are rooted in a realistically critical view of American life and propelled by the intense personal conviction of a man who cares what he writes about and writes about something that matters." The Crucible was based around the times of the Salem witch trials.

In my seminar class today (3/21) Mr. Wickersham mentioned to the class about how he has characters he loves and characters he hates. Just from what we have read so far, which character do you think you can relate to the most to? Also, how do you feel about Arthur Miller and his style of writing?

Jordan R.

March Madness in the 50s?

Currently, the NCAA march madness college basketball tourney challenge is going on. This is a large event that happens once a year.


This event is one that allows many people to show off their ego, and it gives them bragging rights for around a year.


March madness started in 1978, 28 years after the 1950s.


1 - Do you think that the people in the 50s could've come up with such an event?

2 - Did you make a bracket this year?

3 - What could give people of the 50s bragging rights for a year?


Sean T.





NCAA Tournament History - http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/mayhem/history/


NCAA Basketball tournament timeline - http://www.ncaasports.com/basketball/mens/story/9033549


1939 - NCAA Tournament begins with a field of 8.


1946 - The championship game is first televised. Oklahoma State defeated North Carolina.


1951 - The # of teams expands to 16 and in 1953 to 22 -25.


1975 - A 32-team field was adopted and the term, "Final Four" first appeared in an NCAA publication.


1979 - 40 team field.


1980 - 48-team field. In 1981, the NCAA begins a regulated system of ratings to ensure a balanced tournament called RPI.


1985 - The 64-team field is set.

Source for 1956 Champions University of San Francisco photo.
http://graphics.fansonly.com/schools/sanf/graphics/1956-m-baskbl-champions.jpg

Night, Hiroshima, A Separate Peace

All of us have read and explored one story concerning WWII. We have all been touched greatly while reading these. Some of us read Night - a story about Elie and his father and their struggle through the Holocaust, while some read A Separate Peace - a story about how WWII affected childrens lives in the US and about how it caused some to go insane and some to be jealous. The rest of us read Hiroshima - a story about dropping the atomic bomb over Hiroshima (and Nagasaki).

Each of these novels show us every view of WWII. Night showed us it from the Holocaust, A Separate Peace showed it by how Americans were affected, and Hiroshima showed us from the atomic bomb being dropped on it.
- What have you learned?
- Did reading this make you realize how little you knew about it?
- What really touched you while reading and made you feel similar to the way the characters were feeling?
- Also, now that you know what the other books were about, if you could go back in time, would you chose another book? Why?

Josh Sk.

Standing on the sidelines while a genocide occurs

Philippe Galliard, Red Cross supervisor in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994, said,

"In such circumstances, if you do not at least speak out clearly... you are participating in the genocide. If you shut up when you see what you see, then morally, ethically, you cannot shut up. It is a responsibility to speak out."

Few spoke out effectively to stop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It took a couple of years to get the U.S. and Europe to act in Bosnia by 1995. Now, we're witness to another genocide in Darfur, Sudan. The government-backed janjiweed, Arab Americans, have persecuted Black Americans.

What can we do, as witnesses to this genocide, to help stop it? To help raise awareness?

Frontline: Ghosts of Rwanda website: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ghosts/

www.savedarfur.org

Also, a way for high schools to get involved - Dollars for Darfur. Check it out. We might want to organize something. http://www.savedarfur.org/page/content/dfd/

Mr. W.

How would you react if you were in Rosa's shoes?

Recently, we've been talking about the Holocaust and WWII. Friday, Mrs.Bruton came in our class and gave us a lecture on the history of theHolocaust. Mrs. Bruton showed us a short movie about people who actually survived and went through the dreadful times. In the movie, there was a lady, Rosa, that talked about how she got sent all over the place. Her parents both died and her siblings got killed when people came to inspect their houses. She was the only person in her family who lived. The guards told her and a group of people to go somewhere and they'd come back to get them later on, but they never did. Rosa was very lucky because during that time, a break like that was very rare. Rosa survived and is still living today.

Could you ever imagine going through something that scary?

What would you do if you were a little kid all by yourself at a "death camp"?

How would you react to taking your clothes off in front of guards or having to shave your head?

Haley

Pictures taken from:

1. http://shamash.org/holocaust/photos/images/maidan01.jpg - shoes collected from victims at Maidanek

2. http://shamash.org/holocaust/photos/images/Auschw01.jpg - glasses collected from victims at Auschwitz