Literature Circle Post II

Book: A Clockwork Orange

Author: Anthony Burgess

Page: 1-130

Section A:
What I found striking about the book, was the fact that the main character was pushed to his extremities by being put into a rehabilitation facility. Usually you wouldn't see the main character who is supposed to prevail all things thrown at him, is being treated this way under these harsh conditions. I also find the book interesting because I don't know what's going to happen next and whether he will escape this mental torture house.

I like that the book contains a lot of violence and topics of the sort because in my opinion it really spices up the book. In most books the description of such actions would not be so vivid as they were in this book, therefore this book is in my top 5 favs.

Section B:
"What's your interpretation of the word clockwork orange?"
"How would you react in the situation the main character, Alex, is in?
"What connections can you make to the real word from the government in "A Clockwork Orange"?

Section C:
"And those hard slovos, brothers, were like the beginning of my freedom"
I chose this because it was repeated through out his time in jail but he didn't really get what he had expected. I liked it because it says you can't anticipate many situations in life such like this one, and he learns this the hard way. It was important to the book because it told them that he would be nice, fine and back to the way he was when the book first started but he doesn't, this part acts as a pivot point where the book turn from bad to worse, which you'll notice close to the end of the book.

Literature Circle Post I

For the past two weeks, I have been assigned to read a book called "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess from the start to page 130. It's about a kid gone wrong, named Alex who is fifteen years old and has a team of "droogies" which in their language of nadsat means friends. They go out at night time and cause mischief like there is no tomorrow. Although, during the day he acts as any other high school student and he has a taste for classical music. Others like millicents (police), his parents and others see Alex's flaws and want to have them corrected, and Alex himself was the one to make sure of that. After trying to rob a starry (old) woman's house, he was betrayed by his droogs due to bad leadership and egoism, so he was turned into the millicents. They planned to have him corrected by a secret program that hasn't been released to the public...

At first, I was really confused about the wording of the book, since half of it was practically in a different language, but as my teacher expressed, it did become really clear after getting through to about half the book. I can picture in the end of the book, Alex turning into a perfectly good person, because currently they are strongly emphasizing that this new program will permanently correct Alex of all mal-doing. Then again, books always have twists...

I noticed that a part in the book connected to a topic live in today's society, police brutality. There is a scene in the book where Alex is being beaten by whomever wanted to, with acceptance of the police. I'm not sure if it would directly happen in the police station in real life, like it did in the book, but still it's the same rational treatment.

Funny Science Article

This is just something I found while looking for more sea plants, it's not really a contributer to our project but I thought it was funny, it talks about how you would get a plant on mars and how to grow it. Anyways more real information coming later.

http://www.physorg.com/news5688.html

Ocean Plants?

I was thinking today about what more to blog about this plant subject, and I had a sudden idea, plants that live under water don't need any more water from rainfall and stuff. So if there were no water, would there still be sea water? My guess would be yes. Knowing that I did a little research on marine plants and what they need to survive, heres a link to a Mad Science post, which discusses how they survive.
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-02/917019997.En.r.html

Water-Wise Weekly

I noticed on this website that I use quite frequently for articles, posts a number of articles written in/by Water-Wise Weekly, now I don't know too much about the group, but from the name I think we can infer that they do discussions about watering plants wisely or anything healthy about water in general. Anyways, this article talked about how plants need water not every once in a while but on a regular basis. Thinking about our situation "What if there were no water from a plants perspective", they cover farms more than plants that dont have too many uses, Why is that? Because humans gather food from their farms and if the farms happen to have no water, than there would be no food for humans, leaving everything a big mess. So what it's trying to say is humans are would also be affected by the lack of water for plants. Other small information they include is proper watering, soil type, etc.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_20070804/ai_n19441766

"The Magical Bud"

Plants die without water :: At least most of them doA dried, seemingly dead Star Moss (Tortula ruralis) looks about as lifeless as steel wool. However, seconds after adding only a few drops of water the once brown 'Brillo pad' becomes a lush green mass of individual branches with starlike needles.

Under electron microscopy, dried star moss reveals incredible cellular damage. "And yet it somehow repairs most of this damage within minutes," says Mel Oliver, a molecular biologist at the USDA's Agricultural Research Service laboratory). Oliver envisions lawns, rangelands, and pastures that could do the same.

This was just a clipping from a small web article about how, the majority of plants NEED water, if you notice at the end Oliver envisioned lawns, rangelands, and pastures doing the same thing that this plant they tested did. I think it was time to research more about the plants that will be affected by the change with no water than the plants that won't be as much. So I'm going to dedicate a week to the green plants and do get normal rainfall that need water to survive.

DRay ;D

Chris' Links : The Evaluation

I was browing google reader and I came across a post that Chris Ring had made that consisted of 4-5 links related to our subject, I decided to do a quick scan through them and found that they are very useful. One link, http://www.cwnp.org/adaptations.html, which talks about Arid places which I think means a desert or dry area, where plants were living which were almost practically living without water already and can cope with very high temperatures. Cactus being a plant that can store water also survives in the desert due to that fact. If you want to check out more links from Chris you can visit his blog!

@ cringsblogofmeaninglessness.blogspot.com

Controversial Article

I found this article very interesting, and the quote that it states "Plants don't waste water, People do". I'm assuming people are saying we are wasting too much water on plants according to the article, and professional growers are saying that people don't understand how to water plants properly and they use half as much water as humans do. This article is useful to our project because it's saying that plants don't need as much water as we think they do.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20070411/ai_n18996946

Scientists at UCSD

On this site it talks about how scientists from the University of California San Diego have done an experiment to discover how plants conserve their water. They go over certain situations such as droughts and intense rainfall. This site can help us because knowing this information, we can know what would happen in the situation we are researching.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DED/is_12_21/ai_76876212

"A Dry Situation"

This site specifically talks about what would happen to plants as well as wild life during a drought which is similar to not having water for a long period of time. It also compares ways humans live through droughts to way plants and animals live through them, which I thought was very interesting. This is relevant to our project because the topic is very similar and the results on the reaction part of the plants would also be the same.

http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/drought/kids_plants&animals.htm

Both sides of Plant/Water story

Although all living organisms need water, some plants need minimal water such as plants in dry areas that dont get much water to begin with. Other plants need alot of water, such as plants in the rainforest where the rainfall is very high. In this site it talks about that and other things related to plants and water. This will excel my group because it's relevant to plants not needing water, in the case where there were no water, the ones that are used to no or little water, will survive longer and vise versa for the plants that receive alot of rain.

http://www.lesslawn.com/articles/article1062.html

Basis question of plants and water

Why do plants need water? On this site you find out, someone asked the question and was responded with a short paragraph and certain facts by a botanist. I'm trying to get the water stuff quick and I think this will help our project because our question is "What would happen if there were no water? (In a plants perspective).

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2000-04/956121573.Bt.r.html

UK Organics: Organic Foods

I thought this was a well built site that tells about foods grown by organic means. The organization was discovered some time in the 80s and farm in UK as well as internationally. This will definitly contribute to our knowleadge of organic farming, because I dont think we looked up too much on the food side of the aspect rather than the farming process itself.
http://www.organicfarmfoods.co.uk/index.php

Last Organization for now

This one is the Humane Farming Association and they go into detail about how they are associated with Factory Farming and alot of information concerning animals, also they skim the fight between family farms with the massive factory farms. This will help us with company statistic views for our news report.
http://www.hfa.org/factory/index.html

Day 2 of organizations

This isn't directly an orginzation but the subject was researched by scientists

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2006/03/30/future-farming060330.html

Interview Aftermath Work

After filming our news interview at the Farmers Market in North Park, I decided we needed more info about certain orginzations and more of their incite so I will dedicate a week to posting things on that... :D
http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/ofp/ofp.shtml

http://isariamwende.blogspot.com/2005/06/traditional-farming-practises.html

I found this on our blogger website (no, it's not from any student at HTH), I figured we were lacking on Traditional Farming information so here's my last post on it for now. *prepare for a long read*

Here's a couple of links I'm using for information, they're really long so just try to skim it or whatever...

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/latinamerica/south/cultures/inca.html

http://www.lost-civilizations.net/inca-civilization.html

http://incas.perucultural.org.pe/english/hissurg6.htm

http://lsa.colorado.edu/~lsa/texts/Incas.html

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAMRCA/INCAS.HTM

http://library.thinkquest.org/5058/inca.htm

http://coe.fgcu.edu/students/webb/meso/inca.htm

http://members.aol.com/TeacherNet/Incas.html

I know alot of them repeat some of the same information, but alot of them have their rarities.

More to come !!

Farming News Report

Hey, I didn't know how to link it so I'll just copy it on here,


Farming News Report

Chris: Hello, welcome to another episode of

Adrian: Today we’ll be discussing the differences in Traditional and Organic Agricultural Farming.

Traditional Farming Clip Start

Chris: In traditional farming, farmers use pesticides and other possibly harmful chemicals to keep animals and bugs off the produce.

Clips of Organic Farming

Adrian: Organic Farming, known to be the healthier and environmentally friendly type, is well-known through out the farming community. It differs from traditional farming by refraining from using certain types of chemicals such as synthetics and less amount of water consumption used

Chris: Now to Olivia with

Interview

Chris: Which is the type of farming you want for you and your children?

Adrian: What would you rather have? Perfect fruits and vegetables or environmentally friendly produce

Chris: we shown you the facts, you decide

Adrian: Until next time, I’m Adrian White

Chris: And I’m Chris Ring, giving you the facts that you want…

(Fade to black)

First Traditional Farming post

http://www.tropag-fieldtrip.cornell.edu/tradag/intro.html

This is explaining about ancient farmers who use the traditional ways of farming. I think this will be important to our group because we need both sides of the topics to compare/contrast them and this is a very informative site.

Organic Farming History

Background

"Organic production has been practiced in the United States since the late 1940s. From that time, the industry has grown from experimental garden plots to large farms with surplus products sold under a special organic label. Food manufacturers have developed organic processed products and many retail marketing chains specialize in the sale of "organic" products. This growth stimulated a need for verification that products are indeed produced according to certain standards. Thus, the organic certification industry also evolved.

More than 40 private organizations and state agencies (certifiers) currently certify organic food, but their standards for growing and labeling organic food may differ. For example, some agencies may permit or prohibit different pesticides or fertilizers in growing organic food. In addition, the language contained in seals, labels, and logos approved by organic certifiers may differ. By the late 1980s, after an attempt to develop a consensus of production and certification standards, the organic industry petitioned Congress to draft the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) defining "organic"."

Just a clipping from a organization's site that has a lot of info about their company organic farming/agriculture.

http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/torg.html#Background

Future posts will be on Traditional Farming.

First Beyond the Border Post

Organic farming uses 30% less energy than traditional agriculture
"Because it relies on a concept that does not use synthetic chemicals, organic famring typically consume 30% less energy and it uses less water than traditional agriculture. Organic farming also have better yields when there is a dry summer."

I thought this would be useful because it applies directly to our subject and any facts are useful starting off in the project.

http://organiclifestyle.wordpress.com/2007/03/30/organic-farming-uses-30-less-energy-than-traditional-agriculture/