Outside Reading

Crichton, Michael. Timeline. New York: Random House Publishing Group, 1999.

For this Outside reading, I read Timeline, by Michael Crichton. This novel starts out in the desert in Arizona, between an Indian reservation and a small town called Gallup. A man and his wife are driving towards Gallup, and they see an old man on the side of the road. As they drive past, the hit a pothole. The wife thinks they have hit the man, and so they drive back to see. The old man is lying down, but has not been hit by the car, and they see the pothole they hit. The old man is obviously very distressed, and he is speaking in riddles. He is saying things like "Left it, heft it, Go back now, get it how (6)" and, to the tune of a John Denver song, "Quondam phone, makes me roam, to the place i belong, old Black Rocky, country byway, Quondam phone, its on roam (9)" Obviously, the couple has no idea what the man is trying to say. Then the wife notices the old mans fingers are very red and swollen, but they werent when they first picked the man up. This goes on for the rest of the car ride, and when they get to the hospital, the old man dies of massive cardiac arrest. An autopsey shows that the veins in his fingers and heart were split, as if they had ben taken apart and then rearranged slightly lower than their normal places. At first they think its a problem with the machine, but later in the story we realize that isnt the case at all. The story then shifts to a company, supposably where this old man worked. They are a company that has developed the secret of time travel. They have been sending people back to find out what an archeologic sight looked like in the past. We discover that this man was sent back, but upon return the equiptment malfunctioned, messing him up. I wont tell you the rest, because it would ruin the suspence should you decide to read this book. A character in this book, Bob Doniger, the CEO of the time travel company, reminded me of the theme of friendship in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? He is a very cruel man. Upon hearing of the death of his employee, he says:

Big f**king deal. The autopsy won't show a thing. Traub (the old man) had transcriptual errors. They'll never figure it out. Why are you wasteing my time with this s**t?
'One of your employees just died, Bob,' Gordon said.
'That's true,' Doniger said coldly. 'And you know what? There's all the f**k I can do about it. I feel sorry. Oh me oh my. Send some flowers. Just handle it, OK? (23).

The transcriptual errors are errors that happen in your body if you time travel too much. Traub (the old man) had these errors. The company knew it, but Traub threatend to reveal the secret of time travel if they didnt let him go back again. He went, and then died on return. Bob Doniger is not being a good friend here. In Oh Brother Where Art Thou, the men were willing to take on extreme danger to help Tommy get out of trouble, but Doniger wasnt willing to take a little bad publicity to keep one of his employees alive. Also, you can tell that he is an unstable person, because of the nochalant way he takes the news about his employees death. It's almost as if he knew it was going to happen. And the language he uses right off the bat is atrocious too. It's too bad that there really are greedy, cruel people like that in the world.

The whole picture upload is a bit confusing to me, but I hope it works out.

Safety First

When you're flying off a jump, 20 feet in the air, there are hundreds of things that could go wrong. Any movement could send you tipping on your side, and as you see the hard, white ground coming up to meet you, you had better hope you're wearing a helmet. In the picture Safety First, by Michael Alkire, one can realize that the photographer agrees with that statement. The photo is of a helmet perched on top of a pair of skis. The skis have white sidewalls, which create a leading line to the helmet. This serves to emphasize the helmet, because your eyes follow the lines and come to rest on the helmet. This placement may also be trying to say that you shouldnt take your skis without your helmet, because to use the skis you would at very least have to agknowledge the helmet. The low camera angle also shows us the importance of the helmet. You feel like you lying on the ground, looking up at the helmet. You might even feel as if you had just hurt yourself and are looking up, wishing you had been wearing the helmet. Its a long distance shot, but the skis form a pathway up to the helmet. The photographer is trying to say that it may be hard for some people to get themselves to wear a helmet, but, since the skis make a path there, its definately possible. These angles, combined with the placement of the subject, make it easy to realize the photographers opinion on helmets: When it comes to skiing, better safe than sorry.

Outside Reading

Grisham , John. The Brethren. Broadway: Dell Publishing, 2001.


The book I am reading is called The Brethren, by John Grisham. I have become interested in this author from the first book I read by him, called The Firm. The Brethren has two stories in one, which are mixed later in the book. It starts with a story about three judges, named Beech, Yarber, and Spicer, who have been put in jail for cheating on taxes, manslaughter, and skimming profits. They have formed a group called The Brethren, in which they help other criminals form appeals for reduced sentences and stuff, in return for money and other things. The second story is about an Arizona Senator named Aaron Lake, who was approached by the FBI. They approached him regarding a nuclear arms exchange in Russia, between a Russian revolutionist and the Iranian government. The FBI had learned that the Russian man, who's name is Natli Chenkov, is planning to overthrow the shaky democracy in Russia and start an expansion of the Russian borders westward. The FBI agrees to get Aaron Lake into the office of presidency if Lake will agree to double military spending.
The three judges in jail are what seemed to me related to the story siddhartha, particalarly one of the parts of The Eightfold Path, Right Livelyhood. The judges are participating in a scam. In this scam, they have written a fake add in a homosexual magazine, where they pretend to be a young man named Rickey living in a drug rehab facility. They say that they need help, because their rich uncle won't pay for their rehab. They get money out of other men. The worst part of their scam is that they try to get close to the pen pal, and learn if he has a wife or something that doenst know the man is a homosexual. Then they blackmail the man for thousands of dollars. One of the men they trap is named curtis, and they read his letter in the jail library. It says,
"Rickey, I can't wait to see you in April. I've already told my wife tgat there is an international diamond show in orlando that month, and she has no interest in going with me.'
'April?' asked Beech.
'Yep. Rickey is certain he will be released in April.'
'Aint that sweet,' Yarber said with a smile.' And Curtis has a wife and kids?' (36)"

This shows the depth of their scam. They are cheating these guys and stealing their money. This is definately not Right Livelyhood, becuase they are hurting many people jsut to make money. Another man they have is named Quince. They have a good background on him, so they decide to send him a letter. They discuss it in the library, saying:

"'Let's bust him,' Beech said. The others quickley agreed.
'How much?' asked Yarber.
'At least a hundred thousand,' said Spicer. 'His family has owned a bank for two generations. We know his father is still active in the buisness, you you have to figure the old man will got nuts if his boy gets outed. Quince can't afford to get booted from the graby train, so he'll pay whatever we demand.' (39)"

Their buisiness is hurting others, making it against the Eightfold Path. These three judges won't be achieving enlightenment any time soon!

Response to Question 1

Here are the questions inside the question...
1) Should Homer be considered an early feminist or an old-fashioned sexist?
2) Is Odysseus a hero for modern times?
3) Is the concept of Kleos relevant for a contemporary society?

Here are my thoughts...

I think Homer is a old-fashioned sexist, but I don't think he should be thought less of because. the view of the time back then was that women were to stay at home and care for the house. I don't think anyone would've viewed homer as a sexist, because everyone thought that the woman's job was to stay at home. You can't blame Homer without blaming almost the entire population of Ancient Greek men. I also believe that the argument about Athena being powerful and all that stuff is flawed. The reason that she was depicted as powerful and respected is that she was a goddess, and has nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman.

I don't think Odysseus would be capable of filling the role of hero in modern times. He is simply not an honest man. The only reason he was depicted as a hero in Ancient Greece is because he was a good fighter, and a good strategist, and a king. Another reason he couldn't be a hero is because we really don't have heroes anymore. We have the kind in movies, but those obviously aren't real. We have politicians, who need to be honest, not liars, and they really aren't heroes either. Odysseus is just a smart guy who lies to people because he thinks its fun, not a hero.

And as for Kleos, I don't think its very relevant. There are a few examples, such as getting into a good school, or winning a sport event, that would bring someone glory, but for the most part we lead pretty glory-deprived lives. We don't go off to war to take back treasures that were stolen from us, we don't kill other families because they killed one of us. We just earn money and then spend it away for most of our lives.