Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Use the following words in a story: hypocrite, paperclip, city, telephone, cookie jar

"Cruiser 2-33 respond"
"What is it dispatcher?"
"We got a report of a multiple stabbing with a paperclip" replied the operator
"A paperclip?" said the officer. "That's a little bizarre."
Officer Billy J. Horton was a inner city cop, one of the only ones not corrupted by the Colombian drug dealers, him and his partner officer Hugh James planned to infiltrate the Colombian hide out. Officer James was new to the force and wanted to do good. The Colombians had their hands in the cookie jar with many of the force in their pocket.
"Dispatcher this is Cruiser 4-31, we're closer to the scene we'll respond." The voice crackled over the radio.
"Damn Colombians." Hugh said out loud. "Probably another drug deal gone wrong."
Officer Horton nodded in approval then piped up "You wanna just grab a coffee and head back to the station? It's been a long night."
"Sure" replied the other officer. "Then we can finish that paper work and finally bust those punks."
"Easy there junior we got to watch our step there's crooked cops everywhere. Let's just finish the work and we can look in to an investigation later."
Back at the station the telephone rang and officer Horton answered it. He hung up the phone and yelled at Hugh to grab his stuff.
"What's the situation?" Hugh asked as he shuffled his papers in a neat pile at the edge of his desk.
"We have a Colombian with multiple gunshot wounds still alive! Probably someone who was tired of the drug business and tried to get out." Horton shouted across the desk.
"Damn man! So where are we heading then?" Hugh responded excitedly.
"Hospital. He's in critical condition."
The officers showed up to the hospital and questioned the now stable patient. They found out where they were hiding the next shipment. A warehouse just out of town. They hopped into their cruiser and peeled off.
"You think this guy is messing with us Horton?" Hugh questioned.
Horton scratched his beard "Better not be screwing with us, or else I'd kill that f@#$%*!"
"Do ya think we'll have to shoot somebody?"
"Probably. Don't worry rook, won't be your first shooting."
As they arrived at the scene they turned off the lights to their cruiser and crawled into the empty lot. The warehouse stood there, the dark building outlined in the night sky by only the moon. The two officers drew their guns and made their way to the side entrance. As they approached Hugh whispered to Horton "You think we should call for back-up?"
"Don't worry, I don't think we're gonna need it..."
The officers moved into the warehouse and all of a sudden bright lights blinded the two officers.
"POLICE!" yelled Hugh
"Relax" Horton responded. "That word doesn't mean s#*! to these guys"
Hugh's eyes adjusted to the glare and saw a crowd of people holding a bountiful of guns all pointed towards him.
"Drop your gun Hugh, you're out numbered" said Horton
"I'm out numbered?" questioned Hugh his eyes slowly made their way to Horton who was now walking towards the crowd of people. "What happened to us?"
"There never was an us just a you and me" snorted Horton.
"But what about the dealers? Why did you want to put them away so badly?" Hugh spat out.
"The dealers are my rivals of course I'd want to see them outta this town." responded Horton.
"YOU HYPOCRITE!" yelled Hugh. "YOU F#$%ing BETRAYED ME!"
"Well I couldn't have a cop trying to put me behind bars now, that would just be stupid." Horton replied calmly.
Hugh's hands were trembling by his side "so what now, your just gonna kill me?"
"Yeah that's pretty much it, well can't say it was a pleasure" Horton raised his hand and gave the mob a signal. All of a sudden the small warehouse lit up with the sound of gun fire and the burning smell of gunpowder. With in seconds Hugh's lifeless body hit the floor, a pool of blood quickly formed around him. And just like that it was over, the place stood empty and silent, except Horton who laughed as he walked away.

The Cost of Ignorance

In the story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson the villagers who seem passive and unassertive turn monstrous when a mob mentality kicks in and they stone one of their own because of tradition. This can relate to everyone, sure maybe not to this extreme but when given an opportunity to throw something at someone most people take a shot at it. This can be proven by comparing it with school dodge ball, even though the objective of the game is to hit someone with a soft foam ball that can't do any fatal damage, people still try to throw the ball as hard as they can with the intention of causing harm to the recipient. Many people would like to believe that they wouldn't do such a thing but when everyone else is doing it, it's hard to not participate.

Eli presents a speech named "The Perils of Indifference" to president, first lady, and others attending the millennium lecture series in April 1999, he tells them of his past as a Polish teenager in the Holocaust. Eli explains how important compassion really is. In "The Lottery" the women draws the marked piece of paper which means she is to be stoned for no particular reason, Eli explains that sometimes not caring is even worse than anger. The villagers in "The Lottery" show that they don't care for the importance of a human life and see the stoning as an inconvenience, to take time out of their day to participate in this event. "The Perils of Indifference" explains the same thing happened in the Holocaust, only Nazi soldiers took lives of Jewish people because they were given orders to, and they did it without remorse. Eli was right to say that if one were to not have compassion that said someone could to unthinkable acts.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Perception is Everything

Everyone might see thing differently, kind of a broad statement yeah I know. What I really mean to say is what you may see might be completely different from what I'm seeing, I'll try and explain. We are both seeing the color red, and we both aren't wrong the color we see is red but the red you might see could be what I think is blue, does that make sense? Beau Otto presents a theory on illusions, his theory is that things are not what they seem and that we can be manipulated to what the illusionist wants. His theory is relatively correct in the sense that we are manipulated to buy what a certain seller wants, like food, something looks better than it actually. For example Mc Donald's uses color schemes to sell their products, the Big Mac looks way better with all the chemical enhancements and the most appealing back round. In psychology class we learn that companies use colors to influence our behavior, like red makes you feel hungry, blue and green make you feel calm and relaxed, and yellow makes you feel uncomfortable. Mc Donald's choose the color's red and yellow for the logo because they want you to feel hungry and come to their restaurant to eat, and yellow because they don't want you to stay there long. This just shows how large industries have us by a firm grip and we do want they desire. Another way we are being manipulated is the back round of an object. Beau Otto shows that a different color back round can change the appearance of an object, companies can make you buy a product by simply changing a back round. This might be weird but tampons and pad companies use this technique by making the back round either a dark blue color or by making the surroundings appear soft or cozy. Beau Otto is on the right track thinking how even the slightest detail can change your whole perception of an object or figure