What is utopia? To me, utopia is an ideal community or society. A society where the world is at peace,and there will be no wars. A society where leaders are selfless, not corrupted, tainted with greed. When people stop bothering about whose country is more powerful and whose God is more powerful, I believe only then will our society will improve by leaps and bounds. It should be a society where people work for the common good and there is no discrimination at all about skin colour. If only the world was like that. If only......

Russian Revoulution

Moving on......

Apparently the story "Animal Farm" is a satire and allegory of the Russian Revolution.
Right. So in this first part I will tell you more about the characters in the story.


Pigs
Old Major: He can be interpreted as Karl Marx, who first describes the ideal society if everybody is equal. He can also be interpreted as Vladimir Lenin, in the sense that Lenin's skull was too put on display.

Napoleon: He is the main tyrant and villain of the story, and can be interpreted as Joseph Stalin. He gradually builds up his power, forming his own secret police from the puppies that he raised by himself. After Snowball is driven of the farm, he uses propaganda(i.e. Squealer) and threats from the other dogs on the farm. Once he has full power, he edits the commandments to his own benefits. Napoleon's name adds to the novella's themes of totalitarian dictators rising from vacuum of power and absolute power corrupting absolutely.

Snowball: Napoleon's rival, he is an allusion to Leon Trotsky. He wins over the trust of most animals, but is driven out by Napoleon, who has a different set of ideals. Snowball works genuinely for the good of the farm and devises plans to help the animals achieve their vision of a communist Utopia. However, Napoleon's dogs chase him away and soon after that, Napoleon spreads rumours to make Snowball sound like like a evil and corrupt pig who tried to hinder the improvement of the farm.

Squealer: A small fat porker, he serves as Napoleon's right hand man and minister of propaganda. Squealer represents all the propaganda Stalin tried to us to justify his misdeeds. Squealer limits debate by complicating it he confuses and disorientates the animals, making the threat that Mr Jones would return to justify the pigs' privileges.


Humans

Mr. Jones represents Nicholas II of Russia, the deposed Czar, who had been facing severe financial difficulties in the days leading up to the 1917 Revolution. The character is also a nod towards Louis XVI. There are several implications that he represents an autocratic but ineffective capitalist, incapable of running the farm and looking after the animals properly. Jones is a very heavy drinker and the animals revolt against him after he drinks so much that he does not feed or take care of them, and his attempt to recapture the farm is foiled in the Battle of the Cowshed (the Russian Civil War).

Mr. Frederick is the tough owner of Pinch field, a well-kept neighbouring farm. He represents Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in general.[8] He buys wood from the animals for forged money and later attacks them, destroying the windmill but being finally beaten in the resulting Battle of the Windmill (World War II), which could be interpreted as either the battle of Moscow or Stalingrad. There are also stories of him mistreating his own animals, such as throwing dogs into a furnace, which may also represent the Nazi Party's treatment of political dissidents.

Mr. Pilkington is the easy-going but crafty owner of Foxwood, a neighbouring farm overgrown with weeds, as described in the book. He represents the western powers, such as the United Kingdom and the United States. The card game at the very end of the novel is a metaphor for the Tehran Conference, where the parties flatter each other, all the while cheating at the game. This last scene is ironic because all the Pigs are civil and kind to the humans, defying all for which they had fought. This happened at the Tehran Conference: the Soviet Union formed an alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom, capitalist countries that the Soviet Union had fought in the early years of the revolution.[8] At the end of the game, both Napoleon and Pilkington draw the Ace of Spades and then begin fighting loudly, symbolising the beginning of tension between the U.S. and Soviet superpowers.

Mr. Whymper is a man hired by Napoleon for public relations of Animal Farm to human society. He is loosely based on Western intellectuals such as George Bernard Shaw and, especially, Lincoln Steffens, who visited the USSR in 1919.

Other

Boxer: He represents the loyal and dedicated people. He works harder than the rest, even getting up earlier than the rest of the animals to do some work. His motto"Napoleon is always right" is also a form of propaganda. However, Napoleon was not able to see that Boxer was a loyal animal and was afraid that Boxer might rebel. Thus, when Boxer was sick, Napoleon sent him to the knackers'.

Mollie: A self centred, vain horse, she enjoyed the things that humans gave her and in the end moved to another farm where the owner fussed over her. She represents the upper-class people, the bourgeoisie and the nobility who fled to the West after the Russian Revolution.

Benjamin: A wise old donkey, he shows little emotion and one of the longest-lived animals. Although he knows about the pigs' wrongdoings, he says nothing to the other animals. He can be interpreted as the cynics in society but on the other hand, he can be a allegory for intellectuals who have the wisdom to stay clear of the purges, but take no action as well, such as pacifists.

Moses the Raven is an old bird that occasionally visits the farm with tales of a place in the sky called Sugarcandy Mountain, where he says animals go when they die, but only if they work hard. He spends time turning the animals' minds to Sugarcandy Mountain and he does no work. He represents religious leaders, specifically the Russian Orthodox Church, and Sugarcandy Mountain is Heaven. Religion is banned in the new régime, and his religious persona is exacerbated by the fact that he is named after a biblical character. He feels unequal in comparison to the other animals, so he leaves after the rebellion, for all animals were supposed to be equal. However, much later in the book he returns to the farm and continues to proclaim the existence of Sugarcandy Mountain. The other animals are confused by the pigs' attitude towards Moses; they denounce his claims as nonsense, but allow him to remain on the farm. The pigs do this to offer the hope of a happy afterlife to the other animals, probably to keep their minds on Sugarcandy Mountain and not on possible uprisings. This is an allegory to Stalin's pact with the Russian Orthodox Church. In the end, Moses is one of few animals to remember the rebellion, along with Clover, Benjamin, and the pigs.

The Sheep represent the mass proletariat, manipulated to support Napoleon in spite of his treachery. They show limited understanding of the situations but support him anyway, and regularly chant "Four legs good, Two legs bad". At the end of the novel, one of the Seven Commandments is changed after the pigs learn to walk on two legs, so they shout "Four legs good, two legs better". They can be relied on by the pigs to shout down any dissent from others.

That's all for today folks:)

How To Solve A Problem

Last Friday during recess, someone was in a rush and accidentally knocked over Mark's waterbottle, causing the water to spill out. A few rags were placed haphazardly on the floor in an attempt to soak the water up, but in the end the floor was still quite wet and nothing was further done. Then, Ms Soh came in for LA lesson. She was a bit angry about the fact that we couldn't solve such a simple poblem, which in this case, was to wipe the floor clean with toilet paper or use a mop. Two helpful classmates, Dylan and Bryan helped Mark to clean the floor while the rest of us stood still like zombies, not bothering to help them. I have learned that even simple things such as this show us how united we are as a class. Thus, I hope that from now on, we will tackle problems, whether big or small, united as a class.

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was born on 30 November 1874 to Lord Randolph Harry Spencer Churchill and Lady Randolph Churchill(Jennie Jerome). Independent and rebellious by nature, Churchill generally did poorly in school, for which he was punished. He was educated at three independent schools: St. George's School in Ascot, Berkshire, followed by Brunswick School in Hove, near Brighton (the school has since been renamed Stoke Brunswick School and relocated to Ashurst Wood in West Sussex), and then at Harrow School on 17 April 1888, where his military career began. Within weeks of his arrival, he had joined the Harrow Rifle Corps. . He earned high marks in English and history and was also the school's fencing champion.

He was rarely visited by his mother (then known as Lady Randolph), and wrote letters begging her to either come to the school or to allow him to come home. His relationship with his father was a distant one, he once remarked that they barely spoke to each other. Due to this lack of parental contact he became very close to his nanny, Elizabeth Anne Everest. When, his father died when he was 45, Churchill was convinced that he would die young too, and thus this made him determined to be quick about making his mark on the world

Army(In brief)

From 1896 to 1897 Churchill served as a soldier and journalist in India, and wrote the basis for THE STORY OF THE MALAKAND FIELD FORCE (1898). "Writing is an adventure," Churchill once said. "To begin with, it is a toy and amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase it that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public."

In 1898 Churchill fought at the battle of Omdurman in Sudan, depicting his experiences in THE RIVER WAR, AN ACCOUNT OF THE RECONQUEST OF THE SUDAN (1899). Churchill's several books dealing with his early career include MY AFRICAN JOURNEY (1908) and MY EARLY LIFE (1930). Churchill resigned his commission in 1899, and was assigned to cover the Boer War for the London Morning Post. His adventures, capture by the Boers, and a daring escape, made Churchill celebrity and hero on his return to England in 1900.


Political Career

'Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, the whole world, including the Unites States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say, "This was their finest hour."' (Churchill in his speech on June 18, 1940)

In the 1900 General Election Churchill was elected as the Conservative MP for Oldham. As a result of reading, Poverty, A Study Of Town Life by Seebohm Rowntree he became a supporter of social reform. In 1904, unconvinced by his party leaders desire for change, Churchill decided to join the Liberal Party.
In the 1906 General Election Churchill won North West Manchester and immediately became a member of the new Liberal government as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. When Herbert Asquith replaced Henry Campbell-Bannerman as Prime Minister in 1908 he promoted Churchill to his cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. While in this post he carried through important social legislation including the establishment of employment exchanges.
At the election of 1922 Churchill was defeated as an Anti-Socialist. A rabid anti-Bolshevik, he further alienated critics by a third abortive military expedition - to help the White Russians on the Murman Coast. He left Parliament in 1922, and returned to the House as a Conservative. From this period he is remembered for his role as chancellor of the exchequer (1924-29) for the part he played in defeating the General strike of 1926 as an opponent of organized labour when the latter came into direct conflict with the principle of public order and government. In 1923 Lord Alfred Douglas accused Churchill of having arranged the wartime death of Lord Kitchener. Douglas's source was a bogus captain who had been certified as a lunatic. Much later he addressed a sonnet to Winston Churchill. False news annoyed Churchill but also BBC - he saw it as a rival to his own British Gazette, edited from his official address at Downing Street.
With the outbreak of World War II Churchill was appointed first lord of the Admiralty. On May 10, 1940, he became Prime Minister, and established close ties with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His radio speeches strenghtened the nation's determination to win the war. "We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. . . . We shall fight on the beaches . . . we shall fight in the fields and in the streets . . . we shall never surrender." In 2001, some sixty years later, President George W. Bush used an adaptation of these words in his speeches after a terrorist attack against World Trade Center on September 11. In November 1943 Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met in Teheran and at the meeting Churchill presented Stalin with a sword of honor for the people of Stalingrad. The Yalta meeting with Roosevelt and Stalin resulted in the dissection of Europe into opposing political jurisdictions. His strategic misjudgment was blamed for the wartime success of Germany in Africa, Norway, and the Aegean. He had difficulties to tolerate Charles de Gaulle, and he told to a friend: "Of all the crosses I have to bear, the heaviest is the Cross of Lorraine." During the war Churchill was relatively healthy but in 1943 and 1944 he suffered pneumonia; also his long, official meals with Stalin, which could take four-five hours, gave him stomach pains. On 8 May Churchill announced the unconditional surrender of Germany. His Conservative party was defeated by the Labour party in the 1945 election, but he continued as Opposition leader in the House of Commons: against Indian independence, and in favor of the United Nations, a unified Europe, and manufacture of the hydrogen bomb.

Brief Outline

In 1951 Churchill became prime minister, and was knighted in 1953. Next year he was acclaimed by the Queen and Parliament as 'the greatest living Briton'. Churchill's efforts to bring an end to the first phase of the Cold War by a summit conference between himself, Eisenhower and Stalin (1952-55) turned out to be fruitless. He resigned from the prime minister's office in 1955 and was succeeded by Anthony Eden. He had suffered a paralytic stroke a few year before, and Lord Moran, his physician, gave him some stimulant, perhaps amphetamine. It is possible that Churchill took drugs, "Dr. Moran's green pills", before important political meetings. His diet was not healthy - he was overweight, did not take any unnecessary steps in his old days, and his servants helped him to dress and undress. After his retirement he published the monumental A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE (1956-58), which mostly dealt with politics and war. At Westerham, Kent, Churchill concentrated in painting, masonry, and horse racing. He frequently dictated letters to his secretaries half-dressed and often roamed around his rooms at Chartwell nude when he awoke. During this last period of his life, when he was not in the center of political power, he also suffered from depression.


Feelings

I feel that Winston Churchill is a great leader as he served his country well and was determined not let his country fall to their enemies. He was a brave soldier as well. However, in spite of his greatness he has his bad points as well. Although he knew that he was overweight, he did not do anything to make himself healthier, tasking his servants to dress and undress him. It could be that he was too used to the rich man's lifestyle. However, all in all I feel that Winston Churchill was a great man

(Note: I apologise for delaying this. My computer went haywire for a while)

RELEVANCE TO TODAY(THE LOTTERY)

From "The Lottery", we learn mainly about how hypocritic we humans are, and also how we follow customs blindly. In the story, for more than, say, 50 years, nobody ever questioned the reason behind this bloody and agonizing ritual, partly because Mr Summers, an influential man, did not feel the need to oppose the lottery. Thus the rest of the villagers followed his lead, not a single one of them questioning the ethics of the lottery. Even the words of Mr Adams and Mrs Graves were said as they were afraid of being stoned to death, but in the end, they forget all about what they said and were only interested in finding out who in the Hutchinson family would get stoned to death.

Moving to my point about hypocrisy. We humans do not bother about things until we get victimised. In the story, Tessie Hutchinson had been participating inthe lottery all her life, and not once did she utter a word of protest to this wrongdoing. However, when she is the one selected to be stoned, she starts saying that the lottery "isn't fair" and "isn't right". This shows how hypocritic we humans can be at times. Im my opinion, Shirley Jackson is trying to say that humans think it is alright to kill others but themselves.

Do we have such lotteries in our society nowadays? Yes, we do. A geeky or clumsy kid gets picked on by a group of stronger kids in school. Companies are not keen on hiring disabled people even though they may be talented just because they are different. Why do we blame them for something they can't control. Do you think they wanted to be born this way? I dont think so. Thus, I hope that we will think carefully about everything we do and not follow blindly

Organ trade: should it be allowed? I think so.

Of course, I'm not saying that we should allow illegal trade like what has happened recently( workers going for medical checkups got their kidneys stolen), however what I'm saying is that people should have the choice whether they want to sell their kidneys or not. If a doctor guarantees that the donor will be fine and if the donor is willing, why not? The money coming from the trade may improve the donor's life, thus I feel we should allow organ trade. After all, what's the point of having two healthy kidneys when you are going to die of starvation anyway? Wouldn't it be better to have one kidney, be healthy and then be able to survive? Thus, I think governments should rethink and maybe allow a restricted and highly monitored organ trade.

A few days ago, I on a train at Tampines, I saw a student from Coral Secondary School giving up his seat to an elderly man. This made me think a lot about how neighbourhood school students are deemed by society.

Firstly, many people will think of a student with long hair, ankle socks who fails his exams at the time. Simply because he is a neighbourhood student. Why is this so? People always overlook the fact that maybe they came from low-income families and always had to help to look after their siblings while their parents go to work. How would they have time to study? I know a few students from neighbourhood schools myself. They are not those type of students who hang out at shopping malls all day long, but are decent people who just did not happen to do so well for their PSLE examinations.

Secondly, people assume that students from neighbourhood schools will become bums and end up in jail because they broke laws. However, let's ask ourselves: are there really no such people in other schools? I can quote you an example at once: the respected monk once from RI embezzled company funds, didn't he?

Thus, I hope people will stop stereotyping neighbourhood students

An eye-for-eye justice

MADRID - AN Iranian woman living in Spain said on Wednesday she welcomed a Tehran court ruling that awards her eye-for-an-eye justice against a suitor who blinded her with acid.
Ameneh Bahrami, 30, told Cadena SER radio, 'I am not doing this out of revenge, but rather so that the suffering I went through is not repeated.'
Late last year an Iranian court ruled that the man - identified only as Majid - who blinded Bahrami in 2004 after she spurned him, should also be blinded with acid based on the Islamic law system of 'qisas,' or eye for an eye retribution, according to Iranian newspaper reports from November.
But Ms Bahrami, who moved to Spain after the attack to get medical treatment, said on Wednesday that under Iranian law, she is entitled to blind him in only one eye, unless she pays euro20,000 ($25,110), because in Iran women are not considered equal to men.
'They have told us that my two eyes are equal to one of his because in my country each man is worth two women. They are not the same,' she told Cadena SER.
Ms Bahrami explained that she was now waiting for a letter from the court to go back to Iran for the punishment to be carried out.
Cadenda SER said that after undergoing treatment in Barcelona, Bahrami recovered 40 per cent vision in one eye but since then doctors have not been able to prevent her from going totally blind.
She also suffered horrific burns to her face, scalp and body. She says she now survives on 400 euro a month in aid from the Spanish government.
The woman said Majid would be blinded by having several drops of acid put into one eye, whereas she had acid splashed all over her face and other parts of her body. -- AP

MY VIEWS

This is a rather touchy subject so I shall express it from two point of views.

VICTIM

Of course, the violence would naturally leave the victim destroyed, mentally and physically. The victim, just because of one angry suitor, now had a ruined future in front of her. She would be deemed a freak, she could could not be totally independent, and would never get married and have children. This in the victim's eyes was totally unfair and naturally she would want to get revenge on her attacker, even if the attacker would be blinded by having several drops of acid put into one eye, whereas she had acid splashed all over her face and other parts of her body. She just wanted to get the satisfaction of knowing that her attacker would go through what she went through and will be going through for the rest of her life. Thus, in this certain aspect, we should sympathise with the victim and agree with her.

OTHER PEOPLE

However, from the bystander's point of view, one would probably think: "Since what the attacker did to you is cruel and heartless, how does what you are going to do justify your actions?" One would also think that 'I am not doing this out of revenge, but rather so that the suffering I went through is not repeated.' is just an excuse to get revenge as there are many other ways for her to share on how she felt and how this act is inhumane. By doing exactly the same act, one would think of her as a hypocrite.

Hello there.

Apparently, I heard from my seniors that our batch of secondary one students are the most prejudiced against iSpark so far. Thus, I would like to voice my opinions about this matter.

True, primary school GEPers may be anti-social, arrogant or rude, but let's question ourselves: are there such people in other consortiums like Ortus, Aphelion and Proed? It would be the greatest joke ever if you can cross your heart and say "no". So, why are we prejudiced against them? Is it because they are smarter than us? If it is, then I believe this would be the case of "eating sour grapes". By the way, why should we get jealous of people who are smarter than us? We, in my opinion, should time learning from them so that we can be as good, or even better, than them. So next time if we enter CSE, we can proudly say that "Hey, I wasn't from iSpark, I had a normal curriculum, but I still got a msg of 1.5 and below". And that, I feel, is really what matters.

The Lottery

Today, Ms Soh gave out a short story called "The Lottery". It was those type of books which required readers to fully understand the story and not just look at things superficially. After I read the story for the first time, I was stumped. It was such(in my opinion) a warped story. Bewildered, I questioned Ms Soh about it. She then told me to read deeper into the story and look for important quotes. I did just that. I read the story again slowly, looking for important quotes. And all of a sudden, it hit home.

Aha! " 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' " In that particular time, people were superstitious and believed that stoning a person would bring good harvest to the village. Old Man Warner personally believes that stopping the lottery would bring bad luck. He is one that believes in following the order of things and never questions the reason behind them.

Surprisingly, Shirley Jackson artfully used name symbology. As I did not know much about names, I decided to do some simple research. Apparently, "Martin," Bobby’s surname, derives from a Middle English word signifying ape or monkey. This, juxtaposed with "Harry Jones" (in all its commonness) and "Dickie Delacroix" (of-the-Cross) urges us to an awareness of the Hairy Ape within us all, veneered by a Christianity as perverted as "Delacroix," vulgarized to "Dellacroy" by the villagers. Horribly, at the end of the story, it will be Mrs. Delacroix, warm and friendly in her natural state, would encourage the others to attack Tessie. "Mr. Adams," at once progenitor and martyr in the Judeo-Christian myth of man, stands with "Mrs. Graves"—the ultimate refuge or escape of all mankind—in the forefront of the crowd.

Another quote I found intriguing was "It isn't fair, it isn't right." All her life, Tessie had been throwing stones at the people unlucky enough to get the slip of paper all her life. However, now that she knew she was about to get killed, she panicked and started shouting about how it wasn't fair and that they should restart the lottery. I think this sorts of brings out the topic about human hypocrisy and the famous quote about "do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you". As said by Ms Soh, Tessie throwed stones as a kid, a teenager and an adult. Now that she would be the one getting killed, what right did she have to say that it wasn't fair?

There is another interesting fact. The sentence "selecting the smoothest and roundest stones" apparently means that the death would be more painful as there would be more bruises and the agony would last longer. To think that children at such a young age could actually think of such a notion makes me feel alarmed and shocked.

At the point of sounding cruel, I was actually glad that Tessie would be the one getting killed and not the other family members. This is because she actually wanted more people(her two married daughters )to be included so that she could increase her chances of surviving. This disgusts me as it is unacceptable to actually include your family members into something this risky so that you can survive. I am also not saying that she should make the choice to die for her family members, but that she should just let things happen and not involve more people.

As usual, I would love to see your comments.+)

Hello there!

I took this picture at random a few days ago and when I looked at it closely, I realised that this could be interpreted into an intriguing topic.

When I first started to analyse this, my first observation was that the outside was fairly bright while the inside of the house was dark. The window grilles also made the picture look kind of negative. Why do I say so? This is my conclusion.

Hypothetically

This picture is taken from a unhappy teenager's point of view. It is bright and shining outside but he is stuck at home, a dark and gloomy place. The window grilles suddenly look like jail cell bars. This makes the teenager even more unhappy with his lack of freedom

I shall thus be talking about this topic. Often, parents don't allow their kids to go out unless they finish their work. Sometimes, they don't allow their children to go out at all. Often, their children will feel very unhappy and will only cause more heartache and headache to their parents. What their parents do not know is, their children have grown up. They have a wider group of friends and restricting them as such will only caused the children to be deemed as introverts and anti-social. Another point I want to stress is, why force your children to do their work unhappily before they can go out when they can let their children have their fun, feel grateful to themselves, and be more motivated to do their work afterwards. Of course, from the parent's point of view, a parent would worry about their children getting carried away or distracted. Thus, there must also be mutual understanding between the two parties so they can understand and respect each other as well.

As usual, I would love to hear your comments. Thank you.