Kite Runner, Reflection Five.

“But all I could manage was to whisper, “No. No. No” over and over again. (219). This was Amir’s reaction to Hassan’s brutal death. This quote was significant in the progression of Kite Runner because it appears that Amir is really trying very hard to right his wrongs. From were I left off in my reading Amir has begun his journey to find Hassan’s son; this is also where I am introduced to Amirs driver Farid. The reason I bring Farid's name up is because he brings up a very common stereotype about Americans that still exists. This came about when Farid stated, “Why are you coming back here anyway? Sell off your Baba’s land? Pocket the money and run back to your mother in America?" (233). I feel that this shows how third world countries or just other countries in general view America. Although this is a vary big misconception about America, it can be proven that we do seem to screw over other nations for our own good time to time. This same message also made me think about the relationship between Amir and Hassan back when they were children. The reason for this is that Hassan was a loyal servent and friend to Amir but Amir screwed him the first chance he got. I am starting to see a pattern that Khaled Hosseini put into Kite Runner, the message being that people are filled with greed and selfishness. In the book alown we see it through the Taliban, Amir, his father Baba, and the list goes on.

Kite Runner, Reflection Four

From the point that I was at in my reading it appeared that the book was winding down because Amir has a good job as a writer, a wife, and a nice house. As I continued reading on I noticed how wrong I was when Amir’s past comes back to haunt him when he received a call from Rahim Khan telling Amir that he was dying and he wanted Amir to return to Afghanistan to see him before he died. By this time Amir was 38 years old yet going back to Afghanistan was haunting to Amir because Rahim Khan was such a big part in the childhood that Amir wanted to forget. This section in the book reminded me of how we can never escape our past no matter how hard we try to. After this section Amir go’s to Rahim Khan’s house where Rahim Khan informs Amir that Hassan was actually his brother and he has a son that he wants Amir to go get. This is because Hassans wife and him were killed. The message that I took from this is that even though you may have physically escaped from your problems eventually you will need to go back to make them right. This exact message was told to Amir earlier in the book even though he didn’t understand it. This came from Rahim Khan when he stated to to Amir, “Come. There is a way to be good again”. (192)

Kite Runner, Reflection Number Three.

From what I have been noticing in my progression in Kite Runner is that Khaled Hosseini tries to illustrate the point that someone who appears to be your friend will stab you in the back for his own good. From where I left off in Kite Runner last week this is exactly what happens from Amir to his servant Hassan. As the jealously continues to build I noticed how extreme Amir’s jealousy of Hassan really was when he asked his father, “Baba, have you ever considered getting new servants?” (89). This continuation of deception from Amir to Hassan contenues to the point when Ali and Hassan move out of Baba’s house. After Hassan and Ali move out the world that Amir knew started to crumble. In some way I believe there was a point being shown. This was that you don’t really know what you got until it’s gone”. From this point the war breaks out and Baba and Amir move to America where Baba is forced to work at a gas station to make ends meet. This made me consider how some Americans take there life for granted and look down on other ethnicities from foreign countries because of the jobs they have or where they live. What we need to understand is that they may have once had great jobs but are forced by war or other problems to change there life completely.

Kite Runner 2nd Reflection

As I continued reading Kite Runner this week I noticed a progression in selfishness and betrayal from Amir towards his servant and loyal friend Hassan. This all seemed to happen because Amir felt his father did not love him more or even as much as his servant Hassan. A quote that stuck out to me this week stated, “The chill between Baba and me thawed a little, And the reason for that was the kites. Baba and I lived in the same house but in different spheres of existence. Kites were the one paper thin slice of intersection between those spheres.” (49). Not only did this quote help set the stage for the rest of this book but it also explained the title “Kite Runner” to me. Amir felt this was his chance to make his dad proud and break the “sphere” in between them. As the book went on Amir ended up winning the kite flying contest, but he also viewed his friend Hassan get beat up and raped and didn’t defend him. This was one of biggest events I feel has happened in the book so far because I feel that it illustrates how everyone wants to be a perfect friend, or just generally a perfect person and they get angry when they figure out they can’t. Well in Kite Runner Hassan is the perfect friend and Amir gets angry he cannot be thus resulting in Amir gradually pushing Hassan out of his life resulting in Hassan and his father moving out of Amir and Baba’s house.

Just Not Good Enough. Kite Runner

“A boy who can’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything”. (22). This quote from Amir’s father in “Kite Runner” begins to show the gradually developing difference between Amir and his father Baba. This quote is significant to the first chapters of “Kite Runner” because it shows that Amir may never live up to his fathers reputation of a big, strong, businessman. This passage symbolizes more then just the fact that Amir cannot defend himself against bullies. It also helps the reader further understand the separation between Amir and his father Baba. Amir describes another difference from him father and him by stating, “Baba sensed my lack of genuine interest and resigned himself to the bleak fact that his son was never going to either play or watch soccer.“ (20). This illustrates that even though Amir tries to please his father by acting interested in what his father is interested in it just seems to make the bond from father to son that much wider. Amir appears to try to gain his fathers approval by excelling in academics and general optimism to everything around him. Despite this Amir seems to have a speck of hatred towards his father because of the fact that Amir never feels fully accepted by Baba. These first two chapters in Kite Runner seems to have the effect to make a reader question to themselves what it would feel like to never be good enough to meet another persons standards.

Kite Runner

I chose Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. The reason I picked this book is because there has been a ton of positive feedback from the media about this book. Also I heard the storyline of the book was a challenge to follow along with so I wanted to check it out. Realistically Jordan told me to read this book. So if it sucks, its on him.

Overcoming it all

I just read an article about Jackie Robinson on the official Jackie Robinson website. Jackie Robinson overcame racism and segregation, when Jackie was born he was the only white kid on the block so he was constantly picked on. Despite this he was a great athlete and in his high school career he lettered in 4 sports. From high school Jackie went to collage but was forced to drop out because he couldn’t afford it. After that he joined a “negro baseball league”. He got his big break in 1947 when “Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey approached Jackie about joining the Brooklyn Dodgers”. At the time Jackie Robinson joined the team segregation was at its peak. Jackie overcame segregation and racism in a professional sport which motivated other African Americans to speak up eventually ended segregation altogether.

To read this article go to http://www.jackierobinson.com/about/bio.html

Love Burns?

I just read a heroic article about a man who ran into a burning mobile home and saved a 3 year old child. Jamie Sheetz was sleeping when he woke up at 2 AM to her his dogs barking. Sheetz soon noticed his neighbors mobile home was on fire so he ran to the window, smashed it and climbed in. He then noticed a three year old child seconds away from being engulfed in flames. When a reporter tried to call Sheetz a hero he responded stating, “I'm just a hillbilly, I did what a man's supposed to do.” The boy suffered a couple burns but without Jamie Sheetz the boy would’ve been dead.

To read this article go to http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/233098

Nuclear Arms

As if the war in the middle east wasn’t bad enough already, now the U.S. was informed that Iran is advancing its nuclear program. The president of Iran Ahmadinejad released a statement announcing that their nuclear authorities, "have announced that the various cycles of nuclear fuel management are in our grasp in a comprehensive and domestically produced way". This is a major concern for the United States. Iran claims to only be using their enriched uranium to produce energy to power there country. The U.S. is skeptical about his statement and the U.S. security counsel in Iran has ordered the halt of production of the Uranium. The U.S. also released a statement about plutonium production in Iran stating, “Plutonium extracted from the spent fuel from Arak could be used for a bomb. That's only if Iran were to build a reprocessing facility, which Iran insists it won't”. This war will be up to Obama soon, either we need to take action or back out.

To read this article go to http://www.startribune.com/world/42777527.html?page=1&c=y

GET OUT Please

A case of imperialism is happening in Tibet under the rule of China. The reasons for china keeping a hold on Tibet is because of Tibet’s natural resources. In the 1960’s China discovered that Tibet was rich in uranium and they have been occupying Tibet every sense. The National Secretariat stated that, “Tibet is just another area of strategic importance to China”. They also stated that “Its huge financial resources have now enabled China to become an international-level investor, supporting industrial projects in such places as South Africa, Venezuela, Sudan and Indochina”. being that some of these nations are communist and the other is unstable Tibet needs to be liberated before a war starts. The U.S. stepped in awhile ago but being the current war in Iraq interferance with the Chinese in Tibet needs to stay minimal for now.

To read this article go to www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6530

Darfur Genocide

I just read a article about the genocide in Darfur called, “Q&A Facts Behind Darfur”. This whole article states commonly asked questions about the genocide. The Darfur problem started in 2003 with rebellion groups that attacked Sudan’s government. In response to these attacks the president of Sudan Omar al-Bashir sent his troops to Darfur telling them not to bring back any prisoners. Moreno-Ocampo stated. “Al-Bashir is executing this genocide without gas chambers, without bullets and without machetes. The desert will do it for them”. On top of political corruption the people of Darfur also have to deal with the Jajnaweed who are raiding villages one at a time and they are also very responsible for the displacement of 1,200,000 people. Until Darfur can fall under safe political control and eliminate enemy groups Darfur will continue to be in a genocide.

To read this article go to http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/06/30/darfur.qanda/index.html

Ho, Ho, No?

I just read a article called “Cancel Christmas, The Government Owns Your School”. If the title wasn’t self explanatory enough this article is about the restrictions being put on public schools for Christmastime. There have been hundreds of reports of the saying, “Merry Christmas” being restricted to “Happy Holidays” which is also a stretch to say in public schools. The public schools want to eliminate any term referring to Christmas in a religious manner. This exact situation happened as Scott McPherson states, “A mother in San Diego was barred from reading a Christmas story to a fourth-grade class and In New York, some school administrators asked teachers to limit holiday decorations to generic messages”. The schools do not want to get rid of Christmas. They just want people to see Christmas as more of a American celebration, but as long as there are Christians in America there will still be a fair amount of upset people over this no long so jolly holiday.

You can read this article at http://www.fff.org/comment/com0212l.asp

Film For Everyone

In the online article “Bollywood Confidential” The difference between Bollywood films and Hollywood films are made when Seketu Mehta states, “Bollywood believes in motherhood, patriotism and true love. Hollywood is too ambivalent about family for their tastes.” Also Bollywood films incorporate music, 5 to 14 songs per movie. Bollywood films are starting to spread throughout the world and Seketu Mehta’s explained why that is by exclaiming “They eliminated barriers between Hindus and Muslims and Christians”. Seketu illustrates his own personal experience of what a Bollywood film did to his classmates when he expresses, “my parents had tears in their eyes as they watched 17 mostly white, rich, private-school kids, dressed in sari scraps, dancing to the irresistible beats of songs from the movie”. This common understanding and respecting of cultures along with the emotion of Bollywood films is what makes them, and will continue to make them so successful.

You can read this article at http://www.suketumehta.com/nytm.html

Indian Culture

Indian culture seems to have a combination of everything, from the elegant silk down to the curry used in their food India seems to find a way to keep their culture alive through traditional arts. I just read a article off of a website that explained the multiple different art forms that Indians have. The first thing that was expressed about India was how the country originally branched off of 15 different languages from up to five thousand years ago. The second Indian cultural trend was their clothing. The national dress for woman is the saree which is 6 feet of unstitched cloth that draped over a woman’s body to look elegant. The men are more contemporary wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Food seems to be the big picture in India. Indians have been cooking with some of the same spices for thousands of years, most commonly curry which is a spice that comes in many different variations.

To find this article go to http://www.proudlyindian.co.za/?q=Indian+Culture

Hung Up On Change and Solicitors

Change seems to be the key word the past year for elections. People are looking to replenish or restart our economy, but a article I read is suggesting people may start to replenish their religious side. Gallup had their theory that when the economy gets bad people would turn to religion. To test this theory Gallup hosted a nationwide survey where they called 428,516 houses to ask them if they have been attending church more often in the past year. When the results came back from the survey it indicated there had been no significant changes in church attendance. The only substantial change was peoples positive view on the economy which has substantially gone down from January of 2008. Change is something our nation is begging for right now, but weekly religious routines doesn’t seem to be the change we need.

To read this article go to http://www.gallup.com/poll/117040/Despite-Recession-No-Uptick-Americans-Religiosity.aspx

Moving On

Economic recession, a war, a president promising change. What keeps everyone going? Hope, hope that all the problems will resolve, disappear, but the reality is they won’t. The last article I read was a reminder of this. It was about a victims recount of 9/11 and how his normal day turned tragic when he starred into the eyes of a 757 airliner. Brian Birdwell was on his normal schedule work day at the pentagon when the nose of a 757 hit the wall on the E corner of the pentagon. Brian’s body was more then 60 percent burned and his chance of survival less then one percent. Brian restates what he was thinking when the plain hit by expressing that he didn’t know where to go so he collapsed to the floor and waited for “that feeling of the soul departing the body”. Brian is now retired, he owns a charity for burn victims and he constantly visits veterans providing hope that you can never give up and you should always look to the future.

To read this article go to http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=47411

Religious Justification

Stem Cell Research. Three very controversial words in America sense 2001 and one when President Bush restricted federal funding for stem cell research. The very surprising part is this decision to decline funding for the research was influenced by the Christian branch in the republican party. This is very questionable considering in some ways this contradicts first amendment of the separation of church and state. Another problem that religion interfering with government is we may give foreign nations the edge in the art of biotechnology. A interesting piece I found in this article is how Buddhism justifies stem cell research. This piece illustrated, “In South Korea, where a third of the population is Buddhist, a scientist who cloned human embryonic stem cell lines claimed that he was "recycling, life just as reincarnation does“. I think this is a interesting that the South Koreans combined their nationalism with religion. As clever of a explanation the Koreans have for the research I still do not think that religion is justification for any form of government and until the government goes “atheist” government will somehow be corrupt.

To read this article go to http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/weekinreview/21mishra.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Equality For Who?

“With liberty and justice to all”. A common line said weekly by millions of Americans every week, but in a article I just read about the treatment of immigrants in the Arizona detention center this was not the case. These women were denied proper health care for minor to serious diseases. In response to these allegations, director of removal in Arizona Katrina Kane stated “Reports such as this, while alleging to be unbiased, do great harm to the public’s understanding of the complex issues involved in immigration law enforcement”. Although this is true, there is overwhelming proof that the Arizona detention center has been lacking health care and treatment. A example of this is women that was complaining of stomach pains and for a treatment the Arizona staff told her to “watch her died and exercise”. Three months later this women was taken to the hospital where the doctors reported she had cyst that was as big as a five month old fetus. This is a problem that even a nation of equality has to suffer and it will be up to the country as a whole to resolve this problem.

This article can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/21immig.html

Muslim Roots in America

Cultural Diversion has been a process of innovation and controversy throughout the history of mankind, but today I am focusing on the immigration of the Muslim culture into America. Many people may not know that Muslims have been in America since the first slave ship arrived in Virginia on 1619. From that point on the Muslim culture kept making its way into America by choice or not. After the slave trade ended the Muslim culture was increasing at a smaller rate for a little bit. This ended in 1876 when the first new was of the immigration of Muslims came at a larger rate. In 1920 mosques were recorded being built in Iowa, Michigan, Detroit, North Dakota, and the list goes on. Although once again Muslim immigration temporarily stopped because of the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act. This bill was changed in 1965 causing the new wave of Muslims from socially unstable countries to flee to America searching for a better life. In 1990 America was reported to have more then 600 mosques. By 1997 there were more then 5 million Muslims in America. The Muslim culture has definitely fit its way into American culture as we know it and they have a strong effect on any Non-Muslims life as they will for the rest of time.
This article can be found at http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org

Livestronger Than Ever

Struggles or difficulties seem to be routine in anyone’s everyday life. Once and awhile there are some cases of these two problems being overcome that have the power to inspire millions to overcome them too. This was exactly what happened to Lance Armstrong. By the time Lance was 25 he was one of the worlds best cyclists, he had already won the Tour Du Pont, and the Tour De France multiple times. At this time he seems to be at the top of his game. This suddenly came to a halt in October 1996 when lance released a statement telling the public that he had testicular cancer, lung cancer, and abdomen cancer. He also later found out he had brain cancer. Lances cancer started as only testicular cancer but when he ignored the signs the cancer spread. Even though he was “knocking on gods door” Lance used his disease to raise cancer awareness starting Livestrong. Lance overcame his cancer to win the Tour De France 7 more times. Lance had his difficulties and his struggles but he turned them around to show there is always hope and to never give up.

This article can be found at Livestrong.org

Falling Apart

Starting off my blogging very late seems to be a disaster in itself, although real natural disasters have been striking the world seemly harder then ever. I recently read a article about the causes and effects of the earthquake that led to a tsunami in the Solomon islands in 2007. This article was found in the Star Tribune. Earthquakes are generally formed when a crust of earth moves downward beneath other sections of crust. This is what happened in the sea by the Solomon islands on the boundary between the Australia and Pacific plates. The shifting plates caused a tsunami that swept through the islands killing 52 people and causing extreme property damage. Geoscientist Kevin Furlong was surprised at the tsunami causing the devastation that it did stating, "Normally we think earthquakes should stop at the plate boundaries”. He also released another statement telling the media that the younger crusts of the earth like that in the Solomon islands are not expected to be major sights for earthquakes.

This article can be found at www.Startribune.com

Minneapolis is Phat

An article that I just read was in the Star Tribune and was called, “Survey: When it comes to being fit, Minneapolis is phat” Although many adults may not understand what this title means. Phat is good. I don’t know why but it is. Anyway just this week in the Men’s Fitness Magazine Minneapolis was ranked the third fittest city in the United States. The reason that we were rated so highly is that Minneapolis citizens have very good access to fitness clubs and generally enjoy participating in sports such as tennis, walking, basketball, and running. The article also said that we have one of the lowest doughnut shops per captia. The only really negative feedback for Minneapolis is that we have 38 percent more ice cream shops then an average city.

Gas Increasing Once Again

Today I read an article in the Star Tribune called “ Nation average price of regular unleaded up nearly 12 cents; first increase since July”. If the title of this article isn’t self explanatory enough, it was about the sudden rise in the price of gasoline in the united states since July. But we don’t really have any reason to complain since the average price of gas last year peaked at $4.11 per gallon. This article also focused on the hot spots to find high and low gas prices in the U.S. The lowest price to get gas was in Billings, Montana at the price of $1.34 a gallon, and the high price of gas was found in Anchorage, Alaska at $2.32 per gallon. Many Americans questioning what will happen to the price of gasoline because already with our economy in a hole any price increase will really hit home for the lower to middle class families.

A Couple Degrees From Death

Today I read an artic in the Star Tribune called “Duluth woman lost in cold was 'like a corpse’” It was about a 64 year old woman from Duluth that was stuck in the snow for four hours before she was found with a body temperature of only 60 degrees. Janice Goodger was watching her daughter’s dog when she slipped on a patch of ice in the backyard; she was too weak to get up so she wrapped a scarf around her legs and pit her body inside her coat to keep warm. As the hours went on Janice’s body temperature continued to drop. When she was found by her daughter she was breathing but her heart was barely beating. When the paramedics arrived they discovered she was in a Hypothermia induced cardiac arrest and if they touched her she could die. When Janice arrived in the hospital Dr. Chris Delp said "She was ice cold, She felt, literally, like a corpse." In order to save the woman’s life they needed to go through intensive steps including sending warm air into her body though a tube. Removing her blood, heating it up, and pulling it back in her. After that they shocked her back to life with an A.E.D. To everyone’s surprise Janice is already back at home and the only think that was taken away from Janice was her ability to yell.