House of the Scorpian by Nancy Farmer: What does the American Experience mean to me?

House of the Scorpian by Nancy Farmer:
My big question during this semester was “What does the American experience mean to me?”  This book helped to answer this question in a similar way to Brave New World.  The plot of this book consists of a boy harvested as a clone to one of the most powerful drug lords in the country of Opium. Throughout the first part of this book clones like himself are segregated against for their origin and mental composure.  The American experience however can easily relate to how certain individuals and how they can discriminate against others for not only what they wear, or how they present themselves; but entire races and origins of people.  This is like Brave New World in the sense that a visualized class system as believed by Aldous Huxley would be one of the only ways to make this system work.
This book helped me to better understand my big question in how these very simple metaphors found in books, or these two specific ones, that the American Experience is decided by the origin of the Experience.  In both of these books different classes of people are decided through class how to be placed on a social ladder.  The American Experience you could say is based on what others make, which you could easily connect to advertisement, reality television, and other forms of advertising that have worked there way into peoples’ lives telling them how to act, what to look like, etc. to gain a social conformity.
I would recommend this book for the reasons of how this metaphor can relate on a large scale of how America functions and how individuals filtering themselves into the American society are affected.  This book encompassed a clear plot, and an ingenious setting that makes the book a must read.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. What does the American experience mean to me?

Reading Log

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley:

My big question posed during this second semester was, “What does the American experience mean to me?”  However this book fulfilled the answer to this question and all pieces that accompany this question.  In Brave New World a world of conformity, an extreme class system, and the common use of drugs to escape reality encompassed the answer.  The American experience is composed of social status.  On account of wealth, race, etc. conforming to others is a part of being accepted into society.  Brave New World portrayed this through people absent of genetic alteration and exactness, spending life in exile; while those composed on common grounds “enjoyed” there life.  

This book I thought was a perfect example of how a world could be taken and transformed with the extremes of profiling and conformity to show the bare exaggerated fundamentals of acceptance.  Whether that be through respect, economic foundation, or actions.  But how can this be associated with my view of the American experience?  I believe that everyone has a choice, however skewed by media and even peer views, etc.  As this society has been running reliably for a large amount of time, one odd member within society was able to transform the outlooks of other persons.  In a society, more the teenage society, a commonality based around drugs, sex, and conformity proves that this book provided a detailed answer to what can be found in the American experience.  

I would recommend this book on account of extreme fiction and a powerful metaphor.  I believe anyone who reads this book will be able to make a quick connection to society and general, and the knowelege of extremes within it.  

Short Story "The Edge"

The Edge

    The time was seven o’clock in the morning, and the glowing ball of heat had began to take its ascent into the sky over the desert.  A loudspeaker with a voice connected to every part of the town produced an obnoxious ring, then proceeded to say, “good morning citizens, another fine day in the town of Limbo.”  The coordinated town members awoke in exact relation, while others had been awake for hours sitting in chairs behind there houses, there gaze being met by a barbed wire fence.  Its twines and curls at the top of the chain link yielding twisted razors placed ten feet of the surface of the sand.        

As the day began its creep through minutes and hours, one by one the citizens of Limbo would arrive at the center of the community.  If you were to look directly down at the town of Limbo, you would notice one single street leading through the center. On either end weaving left and right  to accommodate the citizens residences lining the back roads.  This street you would notice, even though having the expanse of a ⅕ mile, retains a median down it’s focus, with glowing red stop signs positioned at each end of this two lane passage.  The loudspeaker then again came to life, “Don’t forget, citizens, today outlet one, nine, and thirteen will be selling at 50% off, get there fast, before there’s nothing left.”  

Beyond the chain barriers of Limbo, sometimes during the height of the day, or the dead middle of night the bombs would fall.  There magnified oval appearance met by the fins guiding them to the earth.   The pockmarked landscape was showered with downpours of black sand as the falling metal detonated on impact sending shrapnel from the charge in guidance to the area around them.  The citizens of Limbo could hear the concussion, could see them, but only a handful of the town members gave it modest study.       

As the residents of the town resided to there homes for the evening, the cold crept across the desert.  At nine o’clock sharp the loudspeaker switched on with contortion in the background.  The words vented themselves into every household, as the loudspeaker proceeded, “Citizens of Limbo, we hope you have a good evening, we would permit you to get some rest, tomorrow outlets eighteen and nineteen will open there doors.”

 

Explanation:

    The theme or message that this story is revealing is the fact that living in the American society, our perception of the rest of the world is very clouded.  To a point a majority of us, as many of us believe can be very one-minded, resulting in more focus from the population on things of little importance like materialistic objects.  This certain story shows this through the portrayal of a small town placed in the middle of a desert, miles from any other civilization.  The name of the town, Limbo, gives the meaning that in history it has been referred to as the edge of hell.  However I am in no way relating these two, but putting across that meaning that the lifestyle and citizens found in this town are somewhat are not in the violence and conflict present in other countries around us, therefor showing that this town or, the American experience is on the edge of conflict while the majority of American in a way look over while not being involved.   

The setting incorporates falling bombs around the town of Limbo, displaying the little attention the citizens present to the destruction around them.  This also relates to the barbed wire fence, and the safety that it poses to the town.  The reason for the old American, wealthy cliche society is to present to the reader the setting of the American experience, and while this kind of a lifestyle does not apply to many, I exaggerated in my writing.  Apart from the setting, the only dialogue within this story is through the town intercom.  I tried to make this the only dialogue as to make the lifestyle and the town itself the only voice that sent the citizens into action.

However the main focus of this short story was to posses the theme of materialistic objects, and how they steal our concentration from other, more important situations around the world that the majority do not personally come in contact with.  This is shown not only through the exaggerated life style, but the towns focus on sales, stores, and unnecessary objects like cars.  These known to exist through the median and street signs running down the streets of a town all accessible by walking.  The town of Limbo, a town built around the purchase and selling of materialistic objects, surrounded by destruction.                    

Hyperlink Project

Joey B.  Even though the chances are close to nothing for creationism.  What if there was acual proof that creationism exsited.  Causing conflict, and also a mass increase of followers for certain religions.  If evolution never existed, or lacked any proof, would the world fall under one religion, stay the same as religious to non religious, or result in violence as an outcome.

Mike R. Talking about prostitution laws in Sweden this paper opens the door to a reality.   You could present this as freedom.  As the United States is a free country, what if prostitution was legal in the US, and only in the US.  would the health safety bring down the freedom.  Resulting in a piece taken out of the capitalist system.  Could you consider this the same as the government helping a company, would this be fair?

Abby H.  When taking into account euthanasia, what if it was neccessary.  Do you think more people would would go against it if it were.  Or do you think it would be welcomed.  You could represent this as one releife outweighing the another.  If it were mandatory, would it create violence or a continued system.  If choice was completely taken out would there be a right answer? 

A Revolution of Innocence at Work

Post Conviction DNA Testing: A Revolution of Innocence at Work   

    Post-conviction DNA testing is being resisted, but has in the past as well as in  modern day been proven beneficial. I strongly support that DNA testing should be put into affect for use on inmates sitting on death row, and believe that the system of capital punishment in American society should not “seal the fate” (Edwards) of an individual on death row who may hold true innocence.  A case should be re-opened after conviction to use modern resources to prove innocence or guilt so that death row inmates may not be innocently executed.  In simpler terms you could ask, did an innocent man die today?  Although this subject drives controversy on both sides of the argument, there is a specific point in which a human life should be valued above any obstacles that may stop the proof of innocence. Post-conviction DNA testing will not only bring out true innocence where needed, but start to also build a solid foundation for the American system of capital punishment.  There has been a number of cases as evidence to support, and a clear examples of how this process will revolutionize justification within our modern court system.  In cases of conviction to execution, modern resources should be used such as DNA testing to shift the death penalty away from executing the innocent.   

SUPPORT FROM REAL CASES AND EVENTS TO SUPPORT

    As accounting for the past, there have been a number of cases in which post-conviction DNA testing would have and has proved beneficial, such as exonerating or setting free the innocent on death row.  The “DPIC list includes anyone whose conviction and sentence were overturned on appeal, followed by acquittal at retrial, dismissal of the charges, or a pardon based on new evidence” (Lane).  In fact there are a number of people on this list who have participated in fulfilling exoneration or freedom, exactly “17 exonerations in response to DNA testing” (Lane).   The accounts of this may seem minimal,  but their importance is weighted on the life of a man.  This can be further supported by the fact that “approximately 0.5 percent of all persons convicted of felony crimes in the United States are in fact innocent of the charges brought against them” (Lee et. al.).  So, what is a fraction of a percent mean to any of us?  Maybe not much, but I personally support that this number should not be anywhere other than zero.  A significant use of this includes, as quoted by Lee and Walter

“DNA analysis to prove the innocence of a wrongfully convicted person in the United States involved the 1981 conviction of Robert Clark for several serious crimes, including kidnapping and armed robbery. Despite receiving two life sentences, Clark insisted he had not committed the crimes. In 2003, after more than two decades in prison, Clark began trying to obtain a court order to allow him to undergo DNA testing that would either connect him with the crime or prove his innocence. Two years later he was exonerated and set free.” (Lee et. al.)

This case shows not only how DNA testing can save lives, but a personal real-life account of how post-conviction testing can bring others to justice and prove those truly innocent unworthy to wait on death row.  As it exists today “that there have been around 200 exonerations as a result of post-conviction DNA. On the other hand only 14 of these convicts were sentenced to death” (Sangillo).  I consider that that fourteen out of two hundred is insignificant, but I encourage that in the future this amount of exonerations could relate to the death penalty, since as we have seen this has applied to less intense convictions.  In relation to these cases, post-conviction DNA testing has been proved successful, but success can only be taken from the reliability of the testing.  

    RELIABILITY OF THE TESTING

    The reliability of this testing must be taken into account when arguing this subject, as it should be the most efficient way to connect the convict to a given crime.  Furthermore there are two reasons why  “DNA analysis is well established, increasing the reliability of capital trials. The second reason is that the number of death sentences is down. There were only 111 in 2008, down about 66 percent from the 1994 peak of 328” (Lane).  This as shown can create a better foundation for the system of capital punishment in the United States, and bring the innocent from their seats on death row.  It is said that the “most accurate methods of connecting a suspect with a crime is to  use DNA testing” (Lee et. al.)  In opposition, other forms of conviction such as witnesses or accomplices are said to be “inherently unreliable” (Cahill 26).  This supports that post-conviction DNA testing will not only improve innocent executions, but will bring reliability to what I believe, the entire court system.  A foundation on which the convictions to a death sentence will become constant, and convict those holding guilt.  I am, in fact, in no way alone with my stance on this controversy.  

    SUPPORT FROM LAWS,GROUPS, AND ORGANIZATIONS BACKING POST-CONVICTION DNA         TESTING  

     Their is an array of different laws, groups, and organizations in support of post-conviction DNA testing, or parts within it.  For example, the Habeas Corpus litigation is “focusing, as hoped by the movement for anti-death penalty supporting post-conviction DNA testing. This means that lawyers, if in the possession of new evidence that would find the convict innocent could put it into affect” (Lane).  This I find is one of the most important pieces of this argument.  Being that convicts may have been sitting on death row before post-conviction DNA testing was put into effect, using new evidence as presented by this litigation could bring innocence to those waiting to receive an execution date.   In response it is strongly argued that “Most states have resisted using DNA testing after someone's been convicted and their appeals are over” (Edwards).  This is neither fair, nor as I personally see it, humane.  If their is new evidence supporting the life or death of a convict, then new information should absolutely be used.  In addition to these positions, funding has also become a rough area when pursuing the testing.  The Justice for all Act plays a major role in making this downside no longer present itself as a problem.  The Justice for All Act, signed by President Bush “became a federal law in October of 2004. A part of this law provides $25 million over five years to provide post-conviction DNA testing in the states” (“Innocence”).   This law has provided and as I believe will provide the funding needed to pursue post-conviction DNA testing on convicts, regardless might they deserve a second chance.  Their lives should not weigh on money if truly innocent, but should money be wasted on those truly guilty.  Is there a right answer to this question, or a wrong one?  I stand behind, as do other forms of support such as the Justice For All Act and the Habeas Corpus litigation that DNA should be used in re-opened cases so that the innocent are not executed.           

    Overall, post conviction DNA testing could only benefit the road to freedom that stands in the way of those waiting on death row who are innocent.  Post-conviction testing  has not only been proven a number of times in past cases, but has proved reliable, efficient, and most importantly backed by law and other forms of support.  The system of capital punishment in the United States should not be known today as, quoted by Thomas Cahill “ the innocent being executed by a system that has no regard for fairness and no regard for human life” (Cahill 124).  This is the system we should stray away from.  Post- conviction DNA testing provides a key for the innocent, and should be used to the fullest extent.      

   

Works Cited

Cahill, Thomas. A saint on death row: the story of Dominique Green. New York: Nan A.         Talese/Doubleday, 2009.

Edwards, Bob. "Interview: Peter Neufeld, Innocence Project, talks about critical role             DNA testing can play in criminal cases." Morning Edition (NPR) (n.d.): Points of         View Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 3 Nov. 2010.

"Innocence and the Death Penalty." America 07 Feb. 2005: 3. Points of View Reference         Center. EBSCO. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.

Lane, Charles. "End of Innocence." New Republic 241.18 (2010): 10. Points of View         Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.

Lee, M., and Andrew Walter. "Wrongful Convictions & DNA: An Overview." Points of View:         Wrongful Convictions & DNA (2009): 1. Points of View Reference Center. EBSCO.         Web. 10 Nov. 2010.

Sangillo, Gregg. "Death and Innocence." National Journal 39.17 (2007): 36. Points of View     Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.