My Review of Moby-Dick

Even though we only read select chapters in it, I'm pretty sure Moby-Dick was one of the worst books I've ever read in school. The first day, we were required to read the first chapter, and I was bored and confused after the first paragraph. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy we only read select chapters, but I would have been happier if we didn't read it at all. You'd think a book considered a literary classic would have been written better. The language was so thick, I think Nathaniel Hawthorne or Henry David Thoreau would have been easier to read. One of the main reasons we skipped around was that half the book wasn't even part of the story; it was just explaining whaling and whale anatomy and other things that are probably too detailed to be included in a story. It took all of my attention and energy to just move my eyes across the page, and even then I had no idea what I just read. Now, let's talk about the ending. The captain of the ship, Ahab, was obsessed with killing the whale that took his leg when he was a younger man. Though his obsession was interesting to study, the resolution was not. His ship eventually finds the White Whale, but after three days of close pursuit and combat, *SPOILER ALERT* Moby-Dick rams his ship and sinks it, and then destroys the smaller whaling boat that Ahab is on. So, up until the epilogue, everyone is dead. Great story. Fantastic. Even though the narrator, Ishmael, survives the wreck in the epilogue, I feel like this whole book has been a waste of my time. So this guy is obsessed with whales, and so he spends years leading his crew to their certain death, and then everybody dies. In language I can barely understand. *sigh.* Herman Melville, I'm going to your gravesite, and you and me are going to have words.

Slow Comprehension

I'm starting to find that I don't enjoy books until a while after I've finished them. This applies especially to school novels. This year we've read works by Miller, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and Dickinson. And out of all of those, Arthur Miller is the only author I've actually enjoyed. Last year, we read Cisneros, Wiesel, Shakespeare, Card, and Lowry, and I only liked the Shakespeare plays. The year before that, we read Shakespeare, London, and Zusack. Those I enjoyed. The year before, we read Tolkein, and I can honestly say it was the best book I've read in school. I despised the Scarlet Letter until I finished it. I hated Much Ado About Nothing until a year after I read it. I on't know why. Maybe I'm just remarkably slow. Anyway, now we're reading Twain. And I'm prepared to hate it for the next year.

Survey for Computer Applications

Here is my survey for my Computer Apps class on sports opinions and trivia. Enjoy!

http://tinyurl.com/cyayhyd

Sub-Par Qualifications

Both of my previous posts have been pretty heavy, so I'll keep it light this time. The other day I decided that I might as well begin the process of getting my driver's license. I did some research, and found out, like in most places, Massachusetts requires you to get a learner's permit before applying for your driver's license. In order to get your learner's permit, though, all you have to do is pass a written test. A WRITTEN TEST. Am I the only one who's bothered by the fact that all you have to do for it to be legal for you to get behind the wheel of a car is that you pass a written test? No driving tests, observation, anything. In what way does a written test qualify a person to get behind the wheel of an automobile? Yes, I know there are extreme restrictions on what someone with a permit can actually do in a car, but it still bothers me.

Taxing Commerce

During February vacation, I went to Florida for a week or so. In the state of Florida there is a network of toll roads for drivers, and so often a decent amount of money has to be paid to the state. But if you drive outside of the state of Florida, coming from a Florida toll road, you still have to pay the toll. Essentially, then, Florida is taxing you to leave its own state. Technically, since I could have passed over state lines, this would have resulted in me being part of the system of interstate commerce. And who's job is it to regulate that? Not Florida's, but the federal government's. In the landmark Supreme Court case Gibbons v. Ogden the Supreme Court gave the control of interstate commerce to the government at the federal level. If, hypothetically, the federal government was controlling the tolls out of the state of Florida, though, it would be of questionable legality. The US Constitution prevents the federal government from taxing exports, but do exports apply to the state level as well as the national level? If they do, then the State of Florida is disobeying the law by collecting a tax on interstate commerce, and the federal government is disobeying the law by letting Florida tax exports, and since the process of interstate commerce falls under federal control, it would fall on Washington's shoulders to answer to the possibly unconstitutional action of taxing people that leave the State of Florida.

Mindless Conformism

People make decisions by weighing morals in their head, but what are morals? And what are decisions? People can think that are individual, that they are unique, but our society is structured to beat out any nonconformism. You can make a decision, but ultimately that decision will be based less on what you actually believe than what you want people to think you believe. If you were told that you had an entire day to do whatever you wanted, how many of you would do something because it would be frowned upon if you didn't? That's the POINT. People don't understand what is outside the realm of societal conformity. Even if you were the needle in the haystack that actually defied the rules in your time of freedom, there remains the fact that you are consciously defying rules, which are societal creations. The only way to truly be individual is to do what is best for yourself, and not a single person can even do that. The truth remains that we are all mindless servants to society, and whether society is good or bad, we still can't escape it even if we wanted to.