After Thursday's class, I am not sure really sure where I should begin. Honestly, I spent half the class amazed we were actually playing World of Warcraft and doing geometric problems in an International Relations class and the other half trying to keep up with the rapidly developing discussion. Because this is my last offical entry in this blog ( ( Read more... )

I have reached the point of the night when Iain Banks words are beginning to melt together into one amorphous blob of text so I had better stop reading Look to Windward and try to get some sleep. I regret not being able to finish this book because, echoing Alden, Banks has introduced many ideas that seem to be part of a larger recurring theme ( Read more... )

I would first like to comment about Kate's question about whether or not Dan and Laurie should have accepted Veidt's reasoning and allowed him to continue his plan to prevent the world from falling into nuclear war. I do not think Dan or Laurie had much of a choice in the matter about whether or not they should have challenged what he did. They ( Read more... )

I know this blog is late, but I still want to tell you my first impressions about the Watchmen before I go into my reflections about the class discussion and add to your discussion questions from your blogs. First, I would like to echo everyone's other blogs by saying the Watchmen was an incredible read. This was my first graphic novel and I have ( Read more... )

The question, "Was it the material presence of the gardens which led to the Runa unrising or the foreign idea of Sofia 'We are many. They are few.'," was not completely resolved by the end of the discussion. Was it really the the extra food generated by the gardens that led to the increased reproduction of the Runa in the village which in turn ( Read more... )

Kate, I would have to go along with your counter theory to Schmitt's because the way I read it in the book, Schnitt says anything that can sway the majority of the populace towards one decision is political. Schmitt's uses the prime example of the friend/enemy relationship to demonstrate how this majority can be achieved. In order for a large ( Read more... )

Jennifer hit the nail on the head when it comes to describing Schmitt's discussion about the political, its justification for waging Schmitt's version of a correct war, and the inhuman face we must place on our human enemy in order to fight them. You can see these ideas very clearly in the book Starship Troopers. Unlike the movie which only ( Read more... )

When I think about our discussion in class last Thursday, I am constantly drawn to the argument we had over whether or not the I.F. had the right to wipe out the entire bugger race without fully understanding their motives for the first two invasions led by the buggers. The people condemning the actions of the I.F. were arguing from the ( Read more... )

I just want to start out by saying Ender's Game was one of the greatest science fiction novels I have ever read and will have to take the place of He, She and It as the best novel I have read for this class all year. Hitting off of Jentaber, once I starting readign the novel, it just pulled me right in. When I was told the ending of this book ( Read more... )

If I would have posted this blog entry before I started reading Ender's Game, I would have most certainly have agreed with Nedlum and Jentaber that He, She, and It was the best novel we have read for class. Actually, the reason this post is so late is because I cannot not seem to be able to put Ender's Game down. I should probably stop now before ( Read more... )