Angels and Demons with Revenge

        I have started reading the book Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. This book is about a professor who is connecting the clues to find who and why an ancient group are taking revenge against the Catholic church. A group called the Illuminati wants to avenge every member the Catholic church killed in the past. Because the blogs have to have a philosophical edge, I'm going to write about revenge.
        First of all, what is revenge? The definition in the Webster's Dictionary is "The action of inflictiong hurt or harm on someone for a wrong suffering at their hands." An example would be someone shoved you in the hallway. To avenge yourself, you shove him back. I also searched up what the Bible says about revenge. In a lot of bible verses, it says that you should not take revenge on anyone but offer them something. An example in the bible was: if someone slaps you on the left cheek, offer them the right cheek. In this case, the Illuminati are taking revenge on the church because the church persecuted them.
        The Illuminati (meaning the Enlightened ones) was a Satanist group who wanted to show that science and religion were connected. Of course the Catholic church didn't want them to so they persecuted them and drove them out of Italy. Many members survived and plotted revenge against the Catholics. Now, they have kidnapped four important Cardinals and have threatened that they would kill them by the four elements of the world: Earth, wind, fire, and water.
        Should we take revenge on someone because they did something wrong to us? In many movies where someone killed someone else's family member, they go after the killer and most likely kill them. I think that if someone shoves you or insults you, ignore them. Usually, I tease my brother when he does something to me and then my dad tells me to ignore him. I think we should ignore the people who do wrong to us.

Philosophy, War, and Decisions

        The book Behind Enemy Lines is about different situations in history where soldiers go behind enemy lines to complete dangerous missions. For example, a special ops team goes behind enemy lines to put mines on the Iraqi fleet in case the US declare war on them. Since this is a non-fiction, it is much easier write about it connecting to philosophy. War is a good topic connecting with philosophy.
     
        On September 11, 2001, two airplanes, piloted by Al-Qaedan terrorists collided with the World Trade Centers Towers. Because of this attack, President George W. Bush declared war on terrorism in the Middle East. There he sent American soldiers to fight and kill my Al-Qaedans. During those years, many Middle Eastern civilians have died including many soldiers from both sides of the conflict. When Bush was confronted, he said he is doing justice. His definition of justice according to his actions is taking revenge or avenging someone or something that has wronged you. He had a choice whether to send troops into the Middle East or take some other action. Many people considered this a bad choice while some considered it a good one.     But what is a good or bad choice? We make our own choices, either good or bad. Good choices help you and may also help other people while bad choices hurt you and other people. Bush's choice helped us show that we aren't afraid of terrorists. But that choice killed many Americans and Middle Eastern civilians. So would this be considered a bad choice. My opinion is yes, it was a bad decision.

         The leader of the special ops team, Troy had to make a similar decision. He had the choice of putting those mines on the Iraqi fleet. He chose that he would. If he didn't put those mines, the US would have lost many ships, soldiers and supplies. The Iraqis would have also lost men and ships. Because he put those mines, he saved American lives, ships and supplies but those mines killed some Iraqis and destroyed many Iraqi ships. Was that a good choice? It probably was. Another story was about a baseball player going undercover in  Nazi Germany to assassinate a German scientist rumored to be building a nuclear bomb. In the end, he decided not to kill him. And that was a good choice because that scientist was actually working for America. If the baseball player had assassinated him, the US would have lost a good ally.

        So the next time you need to make a decision, think about the outcomes of the choice. Are they going to be good or bad? Are they going to help you and people around you or hurt them? Is it necessary to make this decision?    

Clockwork Prince Ending *Spoiler*

      I have finished reading the Sequel of the Infernal Devices: Clockwork Prince. In my previous blog, I talked about a  specific Shadowhunter, Will. Shadowhunters are demon-hunters who keep peace between werewolves and vampires. The Shadowhunters prime target is to capture the evil master mind named Mortmain who has created a mechanical army. Mortmain wants Tessa, a Shapeshifter to use her against the Shadowhunters.
       The Shadowhunters were unsuccessful in this book, so the author Cassandra Clare will most likely write another one. In the next book it will be more challenging to capture him. They have accidentally killed the only contact Mortmain had, Nate. Nate and Tessa were really close once. As a matter of fact, they were brother and sister. But Mortmain has changed Nate a lot. From Tessa's descriptions, Nate was a very kind, sweet boy who was very innocent. He helped anyone who needed help, almost never did wrong and loved everyone. Now, he is a cold hearted, merciless servant of Mortmain. Anyone who is not with Mortmain, they are his enemy, including his sister. How can a loving, innocent boy turn into such a monster? I don't know. I think that words are very powerful weapons. My guess is that Mortmain soothed him with lies about a better world and him being one of the rulers of that new world.  
      Words are very powerful in real life. Words can persuade, anger someone, soothe someone, and do many other things. In the book, Mortmain lied to and persuaded Nate to join him. We do the same. We make up lies to make one believe us. In a show i was watching, someone said that lies can be dissected and revealed. It is better not to lie. But for persuasion, it is a different story. It is still bad to lie, but to lie to someone for them to do something good would be morally good. Mortmain though lied to Nate for a bad reason. Lies can hurt you, the person you lied to, and others who are affected by the lie. The truth is always the best.  

The Clockwork Prince

The book I want to talk about today, is Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare. It is a sequel of the Clockwork Angel, by the same author. The main character of this book, Tessa, is trying to learn of her past. She has some strange powers like shape shifting and she does not know where it came from, since both of her parents were humans. Simultaneously, Tessa and a group of Shadowhunters are looking for a man named Mortmain who created a mechanical army. Somehow, Mortmain knows the Shadowhunters every move, so the only possibility is that a traitorous spy is with the Shadowhunters.

This blog will not be about Tessa or the search, though. I am going to focus on a Shadowhunter named Will.   He is a broken, sad young man with a despairing past. He freed a demon from a box and that demon cursed him: all who love him will die. The next day his oldest sister died. Terrified, Will fled away from home believing this curse was truly upon him. He was cleverly deceived, though. There was no curse. His sister died of the demon’s poisonous sting that she received. All this time he thought he had a curse upon him and made people hate him instead of loving him.

Whoever Will considered as a person that possibly may care for him or fall in love with him, he had put them down. He was always depressed and negative towards people, having bad attitude and usually insulted them. In this way he used five years of his life trying to make people hate him for nothing. Now, after he learned about the demon's deception, he is very sorrowful.

We often hurt our loved ones because of many different reasons. An insult is like throwing a stone, once it leaves your mouth, you can’t stop it. You can try to fix the wounds but there will always be a scar.  

Moral Dilema Study

1. The topic I chose was drunk driving. To be honest, I picked this topic because I thought it wold be the easiest. But when I started researching about it, I found out a lot. I found out that three in every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some point in their lives. On New Year’s Day, 468 people were killed in car accidents. Alcohol-impaired driving contributed to 40 percent of them.In 2009, 14 percent of children ages 14 and younger killed in crashes died because of alcohol. The government is trying to stop drunk driving by putting up stricter laws and more police as patrols.

2. I think the government should try and stop this issue. I think that the stricter laws and more patrol police is a good way to try. By stopping this issue, children will be safer, other civilians will be safer, the increase of deaths will, drop, and will save lives. I choose the Common Good Approach because I am thinking what would be the best for everyone, and that is stopping Drunk Driving.

3. Here are some things the government did to stop this issue. Pass a national law that prohibits any open alcoholic drinks in public places. Make sure repeat drunk driving offenders are wearing electronic devices such as ankle bracelets at all times. Furthermore, all repeat offenders should have to install ignition interlock instruments (IIDs) in their vehicles. Attach a special marking to the license plates of repeat offenders. However, if someone else has to drive the repeat offender's vehicle, they could be mistaken for being a drunk driver. Since the high percentage of drunk drivers are young, restrict driving for young drivers including not allowing them to drive after a certain time. Increase DUI awareness and education for students in elementary and high schools. Creating a sense of responsibility in young adults and children is also key in further reducing drunken driving incidences in the future.

Clockwork Angel

         I have started reading a new book called Clockwork Angel. It is the prequel of the Mortal Instrument Series (The City of Ashes, The City of Glass) This book unlike the books before it takes place in London, England. A young girl names Tessa, travels to London to find her missing brother Nate. She then finds shelter at the home of the Shadowhunters or demon hunters where she discovers a secret power she has. Tessa is a Downworlder, which is a human infected by lycanthropy, vampiracy, or magic (vampires, werewolves, warlocks). She is a special type of Downworlder: she has the ability to shape-shift into anything she wants to. Now, the Shadowhunters and the demons have seen that she could be useful to them both and have started fighting over her.
         The author, Cassandra Clare has done a very good job of putting different genres in this book such as action, fantasy, romance,   tragedy and betrayal. I couldn't stop reading it. It was full of suspense. I think the thing I enjoy most in this book are the betrayals. When you're not expecting it, a character who seems like a good guy suddenly turns against them and sides with the demons. 
         I am really starting to like this book and hope to read the next one: Clockwork Prince.

Goliath

Goliath. What does that make you think of? It makes me think of something big, bigger than a human, and something very powerful. Goliath is the title of the book I started reading.
First of all, this is the third book of the series. The first two are Leviathan and Behemoth. If I remember well, Yaroslav read this book and said it was very good. To be honest, when I’ve read the first two books, I stopped reading the series. I'm not sure why. When I read Yaroslav's blog on this book, I wanted to start reading it again.The book is about an Austrian Prince during World War I. He was kidnaped away from home aboard an airship: The Leviathan. There he meets a girl (disguised as a boy to serve in the British air force) named Deryn. They became very good friends. They went through many adventures. In this book, they have heard of a weapon that could end the war and are trying to find the inventor, Nikola Tesla.In the book, the author invents many sophisticated weapons and war machines. There are more developed weapons, ships, airplanes, technology and more. I just can’t imagine how horrible World War I would have been if people really had those new, powerful weapons. So many people died because of poisonous gas and artillery. Imagine the number of deaths in World War I if soldiers used those weapons.Today, many people are trying to build new, stronger weapons.                                                                         


All these weapons and machines were made to kill. One bullet in the head-you’re a goner. Instead of building more things to help the environment, people are making things that will hurt the environment. If we put the same time and effort to make things better in the world, people would not die of starvation. Unfortunately the history of the two World Wars didn’t teach us much.