A Rose by Any Other Name

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,
but a flower by the name of rose would smell like pete,
so foul and putrid that other flower,
it brings you to faint with in the hour,
it's name maybe rose but it's colour tells truth,
but it all looks the same with a splash of vermouth,
the reds and the greens blind all who see it,
and it's true name together shall cause you to sit,
but now I tell you this flower is not,
and for you sweet heart it should not be sot.

Oranges and Philosphy by Mia

The art of comparing and contrasting is a fine one. When one takes two subjects such as cats and dogs, it is easy to tell the obvious and superfluous differences and similarities. But what occurs when one takes two subjects and random and attempts to relate them? For example, oranges and philosophy? One may argue that there is nothing what so ever that philosophy and oranges share in common, but there are others that argue there is no difference between them what so ever. Let’s take a glimpse at the similarities and differences of oranges and philosophy.
Oranges are, as we know, brightly colored fruit that can often have an unfavorable taste. However, if one is lucky enough to happen across a sweet, juicy orange that small fruit may just brighten up a day. Oranges are profound objects. One can relate an entire life span to that of an orange. Hopefully, most oranges with be rich and juicy, happiness can run down one's lips into sticky fingers. Other times, the orange is dry and faded, or the peel is so thick it may be difficult to tear it off the desired fruit.
Philosophy, one the other hand, is the center of contemplation, the soul reason one reads book by Plato and Muriel Barry. One can spend an entire life in a sea of books, fruitlessly (which is an ironic term in this essay) attempting to understand life. Philosophy is complicated; it has its own world that inhabits our own. Philosophy is spherical, it has so many sides and theories that it appears to have none. This is one way that oranges and philosophy relate. Why study all the philosophic theories, when a simple orange could hold all of the answers?
Besides both subjects being spherical, both oranges and philosophy can be looked at in a different light and come off in a way one may never expect. Both can be rich with insight, and both can be dull and dry, dragging on for what seems like the end of time. Also, philosophy can be divided into sections, not unlike the sections found in an orange. Philosophy is many layered, deeper and more profound thought slay beneath the theories everyone sees. This too, relates to an orange. Oranges, once in their neat little sections, contain multiple layers of “orange meat”, each layer sweeter than the last. There are many diverse types of oranges that originate from different places in the world. Different philosophic theories come from around the world as well. It's odd that something so simple like an orange and something so complex like philosophy could have basic elements of their nature in common. How they are different, one may ask? Well, for one, an orange is an orange, and philosophy is philosophy. Enough said? These subjects are, quite frankly, worlds apart. However, even worlds apart, one can find similarities.
In this world of comparing and contrasting, it is interesting to find two subjects that have nothing in common, and figure out how they connect. Oranges and philosophy is only one example. Others would be: Jesus and waffles, staplers and the ocean, school and an “all you can eat buffet”. Take a glimpse at what ties into the world, and see how tightly knit everything actually is.

The Wonders of Chocolate

Here are some fun facts about chocolate. It's a little random, but the facts are pretty cool......


Did you know that the Mayans used cacao beans as currency?

American chocolate manufacturers use about 1.5 billion pounds of milk only surpassed by the cheese and ice cream industries. They also consume approximately 3,500,000 pounds of whole milk. (This is from Candyfavorites.com)

Montezuma II would drink 50 cups of hot chocolate everyday, because he believed it made him a more "manly man."

Milton Hersey, the inventor of the Hersey's chocolate bar, has a city named after him where all the lamp posts look like chocolate kisses.

Cacao trees grow exclusively 20 degrees South and 20 degrees North of the equator in Meso America.

High School by Mia

Though it is merely January, the 8th graders at Jefferson Middle School seem to have one soul thought that occupies their mind. The two word phase that slips from the mouths of teachers to be prepared, and the phrase that causes many looks of angst and excitement. It's hard to believe that it is dawning upon us, but it is coming swiftly.
High School.
The experience is not unlike how we as 5th graders felt in January. Back in the confinements of elementary school, trapped with six year old's, middle school seemed ominous and HUGE. Now, high school seems HUGER. With all of the unrealistic scenes from movies about high school, the concept seems to grow more mysterious by the day instead of clearer. You know how there were Bush timer's to when he would be out of office? I think someone should invent for 8th graders so that we can watch the seconds slip away in a apocalyptic haze.
Sure, high school seems large and far off, but is it really that scary? Personally, I want high school. I want to meet new people and teachers and get on with life. Obviously, one has no way to fast forward to such a time. I believe the "fear" of high school and the people in it is highly over rated. Middle school once seemed treacherous, but once there it really wasn't. I believe, though perhaps not optimistically, that high school will be okay. It truly is nothing to fear.

A Poem by Mia (She has notorious trouble coming up with creative names.)

A quiet softness fills the air,
the beams of light fall to the earth.
The sharp sweet of winter fades,
replaced by the springy damp of early
summer. The sky blooms to a soft blue,
and the grass revives its greenness.
Cherry blossom's petals flutter
in a cool breeze. Clouds hang puffy and
white. The day is done, and the sun flushes
the sky pink and purple with orange
before is cedes into the starry darkness.

The President of the United States

The Goblin Market By: Christina Rossetti

MORNING and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries-
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries--
All ripe together
In summer weather--
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy;
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye,
Come buy, come buy."
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger-tips.
"Lie close," Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"

Hear the poem here.
Read the rest here.

OBAMA...OBAMA...OBAMA...OBAMA

So now we have a new president. Some of us will dance with joy others will sulk solemly, and still others will wait. The one thing we must remember in this time is that Obama can not fix everything, and in the words of Harvey Dent "The night is darkeset before the dawn, and the dawn is coming." Obama will cause change but not always in the ways we think.

Music by Mia

Music streamed, vibrant and thick, into the audience.
A mixture of tones so complex it can hardly be described.
It was near poetic. It rose and fell in unison, high notes
floated, lightly and delicately above the hauntingly beautiful
violin's. I closed my eyes, I imagined sun baked stones, warm and rough.
The music brought me to a cliff, overlooking a sea that was golden with light.
I was awed at the power music had over me. Ironically, it was silencing my mind
though it was filled with sound. It was one of those rare moments in one's life when it is hard to distinguish the difference between the music and the mind. It all fused together into one, golden and brilliant piece of music.

It's A Dark And Stormy Night

It's a dark and stormy night but your not scared,

The monsters of your mind have not yet been aired,

The whole mess of monster that bring you fear,

They are not real but whats that you hear,

The creek of the door the bang on the roof,

You say they are nothing with out any proof,

But when the lights go out you truly are afraid,

And the the comforts of of your parents shall bring you no aide,

So know I suggest that you lock your doors,

And sleep very lightly if you live on the Moore's,

Oh look oh wait oh ewe is that blood on the floor,

Ah I see your no more,

So now dear sir I bid you adue,

And remember dear reader they shall come for you.

Josey M.'s Take on Sudan

Letter to Albuquerque Journal

The recent relocation of a close friend has made me develop a better education on the issues in Sudan.

It has come to my attention that problems in Sudan must be solved to protect not only Sudan citizens but missionaries and other volunteers from the U.S. The entire U.S. must be educated on this tragic topic.

Sudan is Africa’s largest country and has been at war almost non-stop since their independence in 1956. After years of diplomatic work, a peace deal was completed in May of 2004.

Participants in this deal included the main southern rebel group in Sudan, the ethnic African Sudan People’s Liberation Army, and the Arab-dominated Khartoum Sudan People’s Liberation Army government.

A huge problem is in the city of Darfur on the internal border of Sudan next to Chad. Approximately one million people in this area are now homeless because of almost constant fighting between African rebels and Arab militia.

Africans blame the Arab militia for being involved in systematic killing, rape, and looting. An estimated 150,000 of the one million homeless have fled to Chad, seeking shelter and food.

Aid agencies are having trouble getting to the ones in need to bring them supplies. The situation keeps getting more and more dangerous for all involved.

The angered Darfarians rebelled because they felt excluded from the talks of the SPLA(their government) gave.

Talks were occurred much more often in Naivasha, Kenya. The growing rebellion of the SPLA in general and the exclusion was too much. The bubble popped and the Darfarians actively rebelled against their government.

The growing problems in the city of Darfur, and Sudan in general, are causing the need for more volunteers and help.

This issue is getting so messy that UN officials are calling Darfur “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.” Sudan is getting bad enough that many are claiming the inability of the rest of the world to act is like the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

As problems in south Sudan are coming to a close problems in the west are at an all time high. Many solutions have been considered.

The most popular idea is that SPLA-Khartoum and the UN Security Council should work together to make a bigger peace treaty to supplement the one put into place this last year.

This treaty would be meant to help other problems, such as Darfur. This idea was quickly killed by one word. Expensive. That’s right, the price of hosting this kind of treaty would cost several million dollars.

This helpless, seemingly hopeless situation is getting worse.

This is why the U.S. must be educated on Sudan’s problems if there is to be hope, any hope at all, to resolve these horrible problems. Listen. Learn. And help this growing massacre end.

This cite was used in the writing of this article:

Doyle, Mark. “Sudan: Big Country, big problems”. BBS news. June, 10, 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3795269.stm

A Review on Crank by Sage S.

When visiting her father during the summer, Kristina is introduced to “the monster”.

Becoming addicted, Crank follows the life of Kristina as she struggles with her addictions and her two-faced identity.

I believe Crank is eligible to be an A-list book. It is a rare gift when an author is able to deliver a meaningful message and still write the book so it is not just appealing, but recommended and meaningful to the targeted audience.

Hopkins writing style is the first I have seen in this particular genre, which also attracts the reader in a different way. Peer pressure and drugs are most likely not going to vanish completely within the upcoming years, and neither will Crank.

It will never be too late nor boring to be educated with Crank, which will hopefully send out effective messages about drugs towards the up-coming messages and appeal to teens with an irresistible story.

I chose to read this book because it was of high recommendation from my peers. I also figured the poem styled writing, with small amounts of text on each page, would be a quick and easy read.

I was dead wrong. This was probably one of the hardest books I have read so far. Mostly because of the unanswered questions that kept popping up in my head, making the book almost unreadable.

When reading this book, one has to ponder the thoughts and ideas of the author, Ellen Hopkins.

The experiences of the main character are so detailed that it would seem almost impossible that Hopkins didn’t have similar experiences as the ones mentioned in Crank on her own.

This got me thinking, if Hopkins once had a drug problem, why did she write this book? One would immediately assume that Hopkins was trying to get the “don’t do drugs” point across to the reader.

If so, what reader? Who is the targeted audience? Assuming that Hopkins wrote this book to show the reader the dangers and consequences of drugs, why did she do it in the format of a poem?

It wouldn’t make a lot of sense for Hopkins to write this book specifically for middle aged people, given that they wouldn’t have much use for the meanings in Crank.

Crank is a book specifically written for teens that have heard of or encountered drugs, but not as heavy as meth. Crank gives the “magical” idea of drugs and puts it in a whole new perspective.

Hopkins delivers the message of the danger and consequences of drugs in a way that is appealing to many teens.

Hopkins does this by following the character from the very start, and slowing and gradually leering her into a heavy addiction, but adds in a few factors, such as relationships and friends, to make the story more interesting to teens.

The poetry format the book is written in makes Crank seem easier to read, which also catches the eye of the targeted teen reader.

In this way Hopkins is able to trick teens into reading Crank to deliver her message across, but adds a twist that keeps the reader turning the pages.

Once the reader has been tricked into the book, Hopkins tricks the reader to put down the back down with an entire new outlook on one’s decisions.

Feeling so realistic and in-escapable, Crank sucks the reader in then spits out a wave of relief as one finishes the book. Throughout the entire book, one cannot help to feel the amount of pain and stress the character is going through.

The reader will feel as if they are a alongside the character and going through the same experiences. That feeling alone is enough to scare away the reader from any type of peer pressure for a very long time, if not forever.

I was reminded of a couple books I have recently read while reading Crank. This includes Sherman Alexie’s The Very True Diaries of a Part-Time Indian, and Stephanie Myers Twilight, both for very different reasons.

Alexie and Hopkins are both trying to get their very different points out in very similar ways. Both authors use an appealing story line and a format out of the norm.

For example, while Hopkins writes poetry, Alexie adds illustrations of cartoon pictures. With Meyer and Hopkins, the route of the stories is what’s similar.

Both main characters chose their paths of life when visiting with their father. Both characters fall in love with a monster they cannot live without.

RATING: 9/10

I chose this rating because no matter how close it may come, nothing is perfect.