The Road

This semester our class got to choose a book to read in English. Most of us agreed on reading the book “The Road”, written by Cormac McCarthy. The story is about a father and his young son who walk alone through a burned and destroyed America. The two of them are heading for the coast, to be safe and warm, compared to their current situation. They have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves against the dangerous men who stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of food and each other.

I’ve now read the first 70 pages, and I’m still waiting for an explanation on why America is burning, and why the father and his son is so alone and scared. I am a very curious person, so I just had to do some research on the internet to find out what had happened to America in the book. Everywhere I read the explanation is that nuclear bombs has hit the country and destroyed it.

The author of this book writes in a very complicated way, and I thought it was hard to understand the story in the beginning. He does not use any comma most of the time, and each sentence is very long, so you really have to focus every second of the time you read. Here is an example: “He pulled the blue plastic tarp off of him and folded it and carried it out to the grocery cart and packed it and came back with their plates and some cornmeal cakes in a plastic bag and a plastic bottle of syrup.”

The book starts with a father and his son (who actually remains nameless throughout the whole book) surveys the landscape, trying to decide where they will travel next. The father is unsure of the month and day, because “he hadn’t kept a calendar for years”. The scene before him reveals ash, probably from several nuclear bombs, falling from the sky and drifting across the landscape. The father and his son are survivors, fighting to live in a world that has been destroyed, with a result of chaos and confusion amongst the remaining people.

The boy and his father travel south for days and weeks to follow. They suffer from endless rain, snow and bitter cold. The father has flashbacks to his childhood, to fishing with his uncle, and to his wife, who likely killed herself because she could not bear living in this new and depressing world. They try to hide from the danger of cannibals and the other men who stalk “the road”.

I must admit that I disliked the book about the first 40 pages or so, but then it changed. Now it fascinates me, and the plot in this book has really caught my attention. It is a dark and almost depressing book, but when you “get to know” the two main characters you start to care about them, and now I really just want to know how the story of their lives ends.

I will post an entry about the book every week, but I really recommend that you read this fascinating story yourselves.

“We are the real Americans; Obama doesn’t know what he is talking about.”

We saw a documentary made by a democrat last week. It was about the republican people in the US thoughts and disappointment true the election in 2009. It was a very interesting documentary, where we got to see how "these people" believe that they're the only real Americans, and how they compare Barack Obama to both the devil and Adolf Hitler. They cried, they shouted and they where really upset when Obama won the election. Many of the republicans believed that the whole world would go under if he would become the new president of the United States.

One of the things that shocked me the most was when she interviewed a man from the south. He said that most of the people in America were too far ahead of the time, compared to what was realistic. "If it was up to me, you would not be able to vote yet" he said to the reported. "Why", she asked. "Because you're a woman" he answered light. He also mentioned, amongst with many of the other men she interviewed, that "we from the south are not ready for a black president".

It may be wrong to write this here, but in my opinion most of the men and women the interviewer talks to through the documentary seems crazy. They do not think outside the box, and lives many years back in time. The priest in one of the churches talked about Obama "killing" all babies, and I actually reacted strongly to the fact that a priest talks about politics in his own church. This seems unethick and wrong in my eyes.

I was in London last week, and started to talk with a man from South-Carolina. He was a Christian republican, but not at all as "crazy" as the people in this documentary. He said that many of the republican people reacted with tears and hate when Obama won the election, but many of them did not think of it that way at all. He was not against homosexuals or black people, and thought that both Obama and McCain were smart men with good intentions. The woman that created the documentary is a democrat, and of course she used the most extreme examples when she made this documentary. I think it is very important not to judge all republican people out of this film.

Senior Project - teen drug abuse in USA

This semester all students in the class of English Social Studies have to write a senior project. I chose to write about the increasing drug abuse amongst teenagers in the US. I read an article where the headline said the following: "Teen Drug Abuse Triples in 10 Years in USA". My main question will probably be why the numbers of teen abusers in USA has increased so drastically the last years. I will post more updates about my senior project later, but this is what I've decided so far.

Happy New Year!! Here is my first blogpost in 2010..

This post will be about the new health reform in the U.S.

I watched a video of Obama where I spoke about the new health reform plan, and I was asked from my teacher to write about it here on my blog. Obama starts his speech with making it clear that if you already have health insurance, and you’re happy with it, no one will make you change it. Under this new plan it will be against the law for an insurance company to deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition. It will also be against the law for insurance companies to drop you’re coverage because you get sick or water it down when you need it the most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cab on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime. He also says that no one should go broke because they get sick, and something needs to be done. Insurance companies will also be required coverage for preventive care. These are only a few of the main points he covers in his speech about the new heath reform. I believe Obama has understood the importance of a safe health system, and the changes he does can make a great difference in the American society.

The United States Constitution..

In class today a women from the United States came to tell us about the United States Constitution. She moved to Norway recently, with her husband and her two sons, and now she travels around in Norway to teach the students about the Constitution in the US. She told us that every year 1 000 000 people from all over the world come to see the original document of the constitution. People often get surprised that the document only consists of 4 pages. It is divided into 4 articles, and it tells us about the structure of their federal government, the relationship between the federal government and the states, and how to change the constitution. Further on we discussed why the government exists, and why it's such a big and important part of the American society, and we agreed on the following points:
· The government controls the economy and the taxes.
· The people need to have rules and laws to follow.
· The government participates in making a balance in the society and between the different states.
 
The United States constitution starts with the following sentence: We, the people of the United States in order to form a perfect union. Further on it says something about their assignment that consists of establishing justice, promote the general welfare, provide for the common defense and secure the blessing of liberty of themselves.
 
It was very interesting to learn about the constitution, because it tells us a lot about the US society in general. The women who came to hold this presentation was very engaging, and made most of the class participating in different discussions.

The Winner Takes All - Elections in Britain

Today we learned about the political system in Britain, and one of the topics we read about in our book was called ”the winner takes all”. Counting the votes in Britain are still done by hand, and while people are counting these votes, the candidates for the election are waiting in another room. This is some very nervous hours, because the system of representation in the UK is the “first-past-the-post” This means that only one candidate is elected, and that is the candidate with the most votes. If there are four candidates, one vote can decide who gets elected to parliament. The other candidates can go home and get on with their normal lives. This also mean that the people who have voted for one of the other candidates but the person that wins, have, in a sense, wasted their vote. Is this unfair? Many people think so, because of this system makes it very hard for middle-sized parties to have a voice in their country.

"Lions for Lambs"

Two weeks ago we saw a film called ”Lions for Lambs”, witch is a 2007 American drama film about the connection between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter, and a California college professor. Two determined students at a West Coast University, Arian and Ernest, follows the inspiration of their idealistic professor, Dr. Malley, and attempt to do something important with their lives. The two of them make the decision to join the war in Afghanistan. Now, as Arian and Ernest are fighting for survival in the field, Dr. Malley attempts to reach a privileged but disaffected student, who is the very opposite of Arian and Ernest, his name is Todd. While Dr. Malley chats with Todd, a mission that Arian and Ernest is a part of goes terribly wrong. The two boys ends up in enemy territory, and the movie ends with both of them getting murdered by the enemy, Taliban. Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. Senator Jasper Irving, is about to give a bombshell story to a TV journalist that may affect Arian and Ernest's fates. As arguments, memories and bullets fly, the three stories binds more tightly together, revealing how each of these Americans can have a big impact on each other and the world.

Professor Malley wants Todd to get involved, and I believe that he means that Todd needs to wake up, and do something with his life. He is a very talented boy, and Dr. Malley tries to make him understand that he has to use his talents. Todd is very critical towards how the political system works in America, but at the same time he does not want to get involved and do something about it. When Dr. Malley says to Todd that he needs to get more involved, it almost seems like he wants him to join the war, but that’s not what he means. I believe he wants Todd to get involved and, for example by joining a political organization, and getting the opportunity to make a difference in the society.