Sacco and Vanzetti

Why were Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti sentenced to death? Well, there are two possible answers to this question. The first answer is that they were found guilty of a holdup murder, and they were therefore sentenced to death. The second answer would be that there was no good, solid, legitimate reason for the death of these two men, except for the fact that they were anarchists and foreigners. If I had to pick, I would choose the second answer. There are many reasons that I would make this choice. First and foremost, there was simply not enough evidence presented to convict Sacco and Vanzetti and condemn them to death. The second answer makes sense. Sacco and Vanzetti were foreigners, and they didn't support the American government. They were in a way a threat, and charging them with murder was, in a way, a way to get rid of that threat. This case highlights one of the most prominent elements throughout history: fear. People do bad things simply because they are afraid of what will happen if they don't. People were afraid of Sacco and Vanzetti, and they wanted to get rid of fear. I we could just  face our fears with civility, with the best interests of all sides in mind, then we could have, and will, avoid several conflicts that will ultimately lead to more fear and more disagreements. Fear drives a vicious cycle, and only when someone stands up and faces fear once and for all, will the cycle end. 

"War"- Luigi Pirandello

How would you react if someone you loved was sent off to fight in a terrible war? What if it was your son? Your only son? Both of your two sons? Would it be worse to see your only son sent off to war, or to see both of your beloved sons sent off to fight? These questions are all addressed in Luigi Pirandello's story "War". This story is set on a train, and throughout, the passengers engage in a conversation/debate over which of the above situations is worse. Another man says that they should not grieve for their sons because they are not considerring their sons' feelings. He said that his son died, but he is not sad because his son died fighting for the country that he loved.

When I think about this story, a lot of thoughts come to mind, most of them sad ones. When I try to think about the questions being asked in this story, I can only wonder if they should even be questions. I mean, are these really questions that can be easily debated? To try and imagine someone's immense sorrow at the loss of a loved one, and then say that there is something worse than that terrible sadness , it just doesn't seem right. No one has any right to judge how another person feels. People deal with feelings and emotions in many different ways.

I think that Luigi Pirandello created a wonderful, yet terrible piece of writing in "War". It realy makes you think about the tolls that the loss of a loved one take on a person. Whether you should grieve more at the lost of one son, or two sons, or whether you shouldn't grieve at all, you could puzzle over this forever.

"The Second Coming"-William Butler Yeats

This is about my fifth try at writing about this poem. So far, I have created several long, boring, drawn out and never ending explanations of this poem that I could not bring myself to post. I think I am forgetting the point of the blog and writing a boring paper instead. So this time, I'm going to try to write something that is not quite as boring.

So, what do I think about this poem? Well, its hard to say for sure. I first read this poem a couple days ago and I have read it a couple more times since, and I'm still trying to figure out what I think of it. It's a pretty sad poem, I've figured out that much. Basically, it's about things getting messed up and falling apart. In fact, that's one of the lines from the poem, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold". I think this is a really important line because its showing how things can't be kept together and there's no support. "The center cannot hold." This words have a very big meaning. The "center" was what people depended on and what gave lives meaning. The center can no longer hold because it was an illusion, there was no center in the first place. World War I and the overall sense of harsh reality that it brought was what revealed to the people the horrific truth that there actually was no center.

I don't know, I feel like this poem has a lot of meaning to me that I have yet to uncover. It definitely means something deeper than what is just there in the text (which is already very meaningful); how everything basically stinks and how people have hope that things will get better, but then that hope is crushed. I'll probably spend another month or so thinking before it comes to me, but hopefully, it'll come.

Helen Keller - "Strike Against War"

"Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an arm of construction." This statemtent, made by Helen Keller in the speech "Strike Against War," is, in my opinion, one of the most profound and moving lines that I have ever heard. Something about it just really struck something the moment I read it. It really made me want to get up and do something about it. I wanted to prove that I wasnt a dumb folllower, but a heroic leader.
This line reminds me of somehting my mom used to say to me when I was in elementary school. "Be a leader, not a follower." She would say this when I would come home complaining about how one of my classmates made unfair rules in a game of tag, or some sort of playground drama like that. I used to think it was a stupid idea. I mean, why would I want to leave my freinds? But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me. What's the point of having a miserable time at recess if there's a way for you to change it? Instead of going along with those unfair tag rules, I could have been a leader and changed it. It all comes down to standing up for yourself. If you have the guts to tell someone that you don't agree with them, then good things can happen. You just have to work up the courage to tell someone that they're being stupid, even if they're one of the most "popular" kids in school.
Taking this out of the context of the playground and into the context of Helen Keller's speech, I can see lots of relation between the two. Keller talked about how the workers are not free. She said that they toiled endlessly, but never benefitted from it. The people who did benefited from it were the people on top, the people who didn't do any work, but called the shots and made the money. If the workers had stood up and refused to follow, they could have turned things around and made their lifestyles better. If someone had taken a stand against taking part in the war and pointed out how the war was not, like president Wilson said, to protect the liberties of Americans. If someone had said that the war was purely about money and didn't take the peoples' interests into mind at all. If only someone had done this, America might have had a clearer head before deciding to go to war.
So in conclusion, I'd like to quote Helen Keller's speech once more. "Strike against all ordinances and laws and institutions that continue the slaughter and butcheries of war. Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing scrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against prepaerdness that means death and misery to millions of human beings." Helen Keller was the person who dared to stand up and be a leader amongst followers.

Blogging vs. Writing

You'd think that blogging was the exact same thing as writing. After all, the only thing that's different is that instead of a pen paper, you have a computer. But blogging and writing are worlds apart, maybe even universes. When you're writing a paper on whatever subject your teacher gives you, you can only write the educational stuff, only what's there. But when you're writing a blog, you can write whatever you want to be there.
For example, let's say you're a kid writing a paper for social studies on World War I, and I'm writing a blog on the same thing. In your paper, you write "The assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne on June 28th, 1914, was the spark that set off the war. " Very exciting. But I get to write all that, in addition to commenting on how funny Ferdinand's mustache looked. I don't know, but somehow I can't see a social studies teacher (or you, for that matter) appreciating comments on person's facial hair in a paper that your grade depends on.
That's the thing about blogging, there aren't any rules for what you can and can't write. You can just type out every single thought that pops into your head, and it's totally ok. Also, there's no rough drafts that you turn in to be edited mercilessly with a red pen. You just type what you want to type and then it's out there. Once you click Post, your thoughts and writing can be accessed by anyone out there who stumbles upon it.
I'm not sure, but I think I kind of like this blogging thing.