Forrrrrrrr sho

In A Lesson Before Dying Grant is the only schoolteacher in the town.  Many of his kids are destined to fail and end up working in a farm.  However, real people that lived through this time had very different experiences.  Roceal Duke says,

“The idea of not going to college never crossed most of our minds.”

This quote is the exact opposite of Grant’s thought process.  Grant’s former elementary school teacher told him that the only option if you’re a black in the south is to leave.  Grant got very upset at this comment, but knew that there had to be some truth to it.  The kids only come to school 5 and a half months instead of six due to the fact that they have to work.  The superintendent of schools told Grant to focus on learning the Pledge and bible verses and nothing else.  He figures that blacks only need to know the basics of education because they won’t be doing jobs that require it. 

This quote completely contradicts Grant.  There might be only one of his students that will end up going to college.  For Roceal Duke, he claims that college was described as mandatory.  Parents would expect it from their children and the teachers expected it from their students.  Duke goes on to say that he was later enrolled in typing class.  This makes it seem like his and Grant’s surroundings are very different.  Grant doesn’t even have enough chalk, while Duke was learning how to use a keyboard.  It seems odd, but it did happen during the time period.

I watched the movie, Much Ado About Nothing, with Denzel and Keanu Reaves.  In this production, it was hard to tell that these actors talked normally in their real lives.  They spoke with such fluency and clarity that it seemed like thats how they always spoke.  Their moods were another part of their acting that made the movie seem more realistic.  I believed that Don John was a really evil person, and I thought that Count Claudio was really innocent and friendly.  Don Pedro seemed like a great friend and person as well.  I was convinced by the acting skills of the cast.  The individual moods for every scene were shown greatly.  Happiness ,anger, sadness, hatred, and other powerful emotions were created, making the movie very exciting and believable.  

I think that the best solution to this problem is to pull out all of the troops.  I realize that this leaves many predicaments unsolved, but there really is no perfect way to go.  By adding more troops into Iraq, we will only add to our death count which continues to rise.  Splitting up Iraq into three different nations will be a failure, because this will greatly weaken each nation-state, leaving it very susceptible to attacks from dangerous, neighboring countries such as Iran. 

The best way to solve the Iraqi problem is for us to abandon our posts and return our troops to the United States.  We cannot proceed any further in attempting to help such a trouble country, that was doomed as soon as we invaded their soil.  This solution really cannot be defined as a “good way” to leave Iraq, but it seems to be the best way.  The only reason America would be unable to cope with this idea is raised by a simple question from Resident Scholar Fred Kagan saying,

“Is it better to accept defeat than to endure the pain of trying to succeed?”

Quote derived from

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.25105/pub_detail.asp

The Kite Runner was definitely worth reading and I highly recommend it to people that need a good book to read.  The story really left me with what trust and friendship actually are.  From this book it enforced that trust is necessary for friendship to occur.  The term friendship, was redefined through this book as well. 

The relationship between Hassan and Amir was that they were like brothers in the beginning of the book, however Amir was afraid to call Hassan his friend because he was a Hazara.  To me this definitely means that their relationship was not true friendship.  Amir treated Hassan poorly, watched him get raped without helping him, and framed him for stealing money.  With all this going on in their childhoods they didn’t seem to be friends at all.  However, once they are separated and realize all of the great times they had together, realize that they are brothers, and yearn to see each other again, their relationship has been revised to a level of friendship that they had never reached before, even though they weren’t seeing each other at all.  Another part of this change in their relationship is that when Amir learns of Hassan’s death and is willing to travel to Kabul, which was very treacherous, to retrieve Hassan’s son, Sohrab.  This shows Amir’s hopes for forgiveness from Hassan and that they shall remain close, in spirit.

After reading The Kite Runner I am now much more interested in world affairs.  I feel ashamed that I didn’t know all of the horrors taking place in Afghanistan and how hard it was to live there.  This book has encouraged me to learn more about such oppressed places and how people can help them.