Monday, October 29, 2012

"David" Questions


"DAVID" QUESTIONS


1. Bobbie and David were hiking and rock/mountains climbing during the summer. They would hike and climb many different trials, paths and mountains.

2.  Bob and David decided to finally climb The Finger. It had been talked about all summer, and in September they decided to make the difficult climb.

3. They began to approach The Finger on a crisp night. Morning came around after spotting the bighorns. After reaching the base of The Finger, the boys climbing for an hour to go up one hundred feet of the peak.

4. As Bobbie's food hold crumbles, David reached over and steadied Bobbie. As he moved over, his foot hold gave and he feel 50 feet to a ledge below. Bobbie had found that David was seriously hurt and couldn't move anything other than his head.

5. David asked Bobbie to push him off the ledge to his certain death as he did not want to live as a quadriplegic.

6. Although not directly stated, it can be obviously assumed that this happened as Bobbie went to the nearby town and told the residents that David had fallen all the way from the peak, to the crevasse below.


QUESTION TIME

a) I do agree with Bob actions in theory. David decided that he didn't want to suffer for the rest of his life; to give up doing what he loved most. Although in practice, the way it went down was a bit shady. He pushed him off at David's own decision  but Bobbie had told the people in town a lie to cover it up. Technically (knowing the location of the story being in the Rocky Mountains of North America) what Bobbie did was illegal, meaning it needed a cover up.

b) I think the story was put into poetic form to really highlight the qualities and personality of David. He was wise, strong, and well knowledgeable. Those qualities make for good poetic devices to be used.

c) The poetic devices keep the reader engaged so that they don't miss very many little details in the story / poem.

d) Nature in the poem is what David lives for. It is also the reason he died. It shows that the world is a tough place and that sometimes things don't go the way they are supposed to.

e) One example of foreshadowing was when Bob found the injured  bird. He helped it calm down, but David encouraged him to leave it because he couldn't help learn to fly. The same situation would soon happen with David in place of the bird. There was also the dead goat that had fallen off of a cliff. This also would soon happen to David.

f) There were many circumstances in the poem where personification was used. Many involved the mountains and sky. I think that the personification helps show that even though Bob pushed David over, it was the nature that killed him.'

POETIC DEVICES

What really helped me get interested in the poem was the personification of the nature as well as the foreshadowing with nature. The bird and mountain goat both got me thinking as to what could happen next.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Robert Latimer Article


Link to the article: 
http://my43.sd43.bc.ca/class/rhethey/English%2010%20DI%20Documents/Robert%20Latimer%20Article.pdf

After reading the 2004 Vancouver Sun article I have learned the story about Robert Latimer and his daughter, Tracy, who was living with cerebral palsy. Robert Latimer had killed Tracy out of what he thought as bringing her peace. I also was able to read about how the jury did not want to give Latimer 10 years in prison, but were not able to grant any less. Many church organizations however disagreed with what was thought by the jury and believed he should be treated as a full on murderer. The reason that he must be sentenced 10 years despite the jury's opinions is because he was charged with 2nd degree murder, which in Canada consists of at least 10 years in prison, no excuses. I had known that assisted suicide is illegal in Canada, and this act performed by Latimer would have fit into that category.

To better understand what went down, I needed to do some background research. I wanted to know how the killing happened, and what Robert is doing right now. First I took a look on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Latimer), here I found that as of 2010, he has been granted full parole. Also, I learned how the killing happened. He used car exhaust to execute the killing. A few more things became evident as I read on. Apparently, Tracy was supposed to undergo surgery to put rods into her back; she would also need to be fed by feeding tubes. In a survey conducted in 1999, there was over 70% of Canadians who thought that Robert Latimer should be let off easier than what he was sentenced to. And finally, rock icon Ozzy Osbourne created a song entitled "Latimer's Mercy" on his 2010 album, Scream.

I had a few more questions about how assisted suicide was viewed around the world. After a few Google searches, I found (http://www.wrtl.org/assistedsuicide/assistedsuicide/whereitislegalWorld.aspx). Here gave a list of all countries where assisted suicide is currently legal, and where assisted suicide is on the verge of becoming legal. Canada finds itself on that list. Although slightly outdated, the comment explains that the Canadian Hospice Society has decide to not pursue the topic and take a neutral stand. It is currently legal (at the time of the page's release) in, Switzerland, Belgium, Columbia, and Luxembourg.

-Jacob Lazare