1968, Martin Luther King, Black Panther Party, Roland Childs

Hello, this is Hank Wu and I'm here to tell you about what's happening with Civil Rights!  In this article I will give you an in-depth look into what is truly going on behind Martin Luther King, the Black Panther Party, Roland Childs, and what specifically happened in this year of 1968.



Just this February of  1968 (February 8) there was a civil rights protest that occurred at a bowling alley in Orangeburg, South Carolina that only serves white people.  This protest led to the unfortunate deaths of three college students, and had to be broken up by highway patrolmen.  If we fast forward to April 4, 1968, we see that Martin Luther King Jr. has died.  Good friends with very well known Roland Childs, Mr. King died at the age of 39.  His murderer, was none other than James Earl Ray.  His name might seem familiar to you, we just did a story on the fugitive who escaped Missouri State Penitentiary.

Now lets move on to the Black Panther Party.  This is an active African American revolutionary leftist group that is making dramatic impacts on our lives and is making history as you read this article.  They try to focus on anti-racism and are deeply involved with the Black Power movement.  They were founded in 1966 by two men (Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton) and recently release their first newspaper article last year.  They also seem to have a list of 26 of strict rules, that must be obeyed by their members. You can find the rules by going to page 2 of our Newspaper (click here to go to the rules).  They also have "The Ten Point Program" which seems to state the rights they want.  Some examples include, "WE WANT FREEDOM. WE WANT POWER TO DETERMINE THE DESTINY OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES" and ,"WE WANT FULL EMPLOYMENT FOR OUR PEOPLE,".  The Party also seems to be fairly violent.  Just this April it had to resort to guns, and one of its own members was killed due to this.


On the other side of the protesting spectrum, Roland Childs is a very well known, very public figure that supports non-violent movement against racism.  He is one of Dr. King's Colleagues who has two sons, a 13 year old boy named Sam, and a 17 year old boy name Stick.  These two boys seem to be part of The Black Panthers, despite his fathers wishes.  What might this lead to?


Well there you have it!  An in depth view into what is going on in Civil Rights so far this year.  

A quote about "The Rock and The River"

For this round of book clubs I am reading a book written by Kekla Magoon called "The Rock and the River". The story is about a boy named Sam, who's father is a well known civil rights activist, but his best friend (who also is his brother) is a Black Panther.  He must make a choice between his father and his brother on which way he should take his life.

"I tried to pretend I was somewhere else... It was a peaceful protest; orderly and insistent, like the ticking of a clock... He (father) was feeding the crowd with his words."
-Sam

The quote above is actually thaken from the first paragraph in the entire book.  It's the first impression I have on the book, and it truly foreshadows alot about what is going to happen as the story goes on.  First off, you should know that the place Sam is in is one of his Father's peaceful protests.  As I've already explained, Sam is eventually going to have to make a decision on whether he will choose to go with his father or his best friend.  From this first sentence, we can probably gather that Sam is going to choose his best friend.  It seems that he has had enough of going with his father's life, and wanted to make a decision of his own.  Along with that, Sam subtly portrays the protest as something that is boring by saying that it is like the ticking of a clock.  I think that we all can agree that watching a clock tick is fairly boring.  Another important thing that Sam says is when he states that he was feeding the crows with his words.  To me, the word feeding pops out, and seems to imply that his father was giving the crowd a type of propaganda.  So far, these three points lead me to believe that Sam is going to go with his brother.

If we take a look at how Kekla Magoon phrased the sentence for Sam, you probably can tell that Kekla was trying to angle Sam as an innocent mind.  There were much more negative ways Sam could have said that he did not want to be at his father's rally.  In fact, Sam never specifically stated that he did not want to be at his father's rally, just that there were other places he would rather be.  The next to sentences are crafted more stealthly.  These sentences seem to have hidden implications and meanings.  Like I explained in the previous passage, all of these implications seem to point to the fact that Sam will join the Black Panthers.

I believe that it is now quite apparent.  Sam will choose to go with the Black Panthers, he will choose to go against his father.  He will choose to go with the rock.

One Lingering Question

As I reach the end of the book, one question seems to have been haunting me since the start.  Why did Patricia Wood make Perry's IQ 76?  Why did she make it exactly 1 point over 75 (which Perry says that 75 is the IQ level for someone to be "mentally retarded").  I've already taken a look at great length to find out why Perry was slow (you can click here to go to that post).  However, it would have been simpler to make Perry's IQ an even 75 or less than 75.  Was making it 76 just an unnescary complexity?

In my opinion, this was one of the most important elements in the story.  By making Perry believe that he is more intellegent than an average mentally retarded person, he is able to have confindence.  That confindence fueled him to memorize words from the dictionary, and that confindence even fueled him to buy lottery tickets (despite his grandmother not wanting him too).  Yes, this confindence is somthing that seems to have dramatically affected the plot of the book.  Who knew that one IQ point could make such a difference/

(Interesting Fact:  If you subtract ten from 76 and put the number into base 16, you get 42.  Which is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.)

A deeper look into Patricia Wood

Today, we will take a deeper look into Patricia Wood, and look for different clues about her life that possibily could give us some new information in the story.  I've touched this in the last post but I believe that the information from that post is relevant to what I am discussing now and I have inserted the relevant exerpt from that post below.   The first quote from my previous blog post is trying to understand why Patricia Wood decided to use the word "gyp" and the second quote is just a fun fact about the setting I have discovered. 

"The book was published around 2008, which makes the book quite recent.  Personally, I don't hear the word "gyp" as often as some of it's alternatives such as "rip-off".  If we take a look at the Author's (Patricia Wood) personal history we see that she recalls a place by the name of "Casey's Drive-in on Aurora Avenue". She also recalls that "For a dollar, you could buy a deluxe hamburger, fries, and a milkshake -- and get change back."  The word gyp, might have come from a time in the past.  It has to be recent enough that the price of food as significantly changed, but distant enough from the present that "gyp" is still a word that is used, even if it is not used often.  I am not entirely sure, but I believe that she simply brought that word back into her memory when she was writing this passage."-Hank Wu, Tuesday, January 18, 2010

"(Side Note: Everett, Washington is the city that Patricia Wood's child lives in, and also happens to be where the book takes place.)"-Hank Wu, Tuesday, January 18, 2010


Now let's get some quick background information on her.  She was one of four sets of twins in her neighborhood.  When she was two years old, she fell right into a fire and she was quickly soaked in saltwater.  She says that this is what gave her love of the sea.  Now, she lives in a 48-foot sailboat called Orion which is located in Hawaii  and she has one son who (as I've said before) lives in Everett, Washingon which is the location of the book "Lottery".   She first discovered writing when she was 8 years old and wrote a book titled "Thickamore The Backnus".  Along with all of this she says that she has done research on sharks, competed in horse shows, and served in the army.

What might caused Patricia Wood to write a story about a person who was mentally unfit who had won the Lottery?  I believe that we can break that basic summary of the book down into two parts: fortune and disabilities.

At first, I could not find a way that these two things were related, and how Patricia Wood's life instigated this.  Then, I found something that made everything click.  Patrica Wood actually was a teacher for special education.  That experience must have influenced Perry's character in many ways.  In the University of Hawaii, Patricia Wood is an actual candidate for the specific area of education and people with disabilities.  It also seems, that she has written quite a lot about educating people with disabilities and even home-schooling the disabled.  Now, Perry (the main character of "Lottery") was not homeschooled, but he did learn many different academic things at home from his Parental figure at home, such as memorizing different words from the dictionary.    Most importantly, she advocates and supports special needs students.  I believe that the Lottery was an inspiration from her work as a special education teacher and as a student on special education to spread the word about people with mental disablities.  She herself has said, "We know how far people can go, yet not enough gets out to the real world. Normal people do not pick up a book to read about special needs adults.”  She wanted to spread word about people with disabilities and what a person with disabilities was like along with giving the person with disabilities a happy accident.  I believe that she loved disabled people so much, that she wanted to help all of them any way she could, even if she made the disabled person up.

Suddenly, everything is starting to make sense.

The Lottery Conversation

For this post, I am going to study a section of dialouge and give some insight into what I believe that the people mean.  In this section of text, we find Perry and Gram, shopping for school supplies.  Perry starts off the conversation by taking the Journal that Gram just put into the shopping cart.

"What's this?  It has nothing inside." -Perry

When Perry says this, he is subtly questioning the judgement of Gram.  This quote shows that he is doubting the need to have a book that has no content in it.  However, he doesn't bring it up in a malicous way.  Instead of following the question with a direct answer such as this, "It's just a blank book with no purpose," (which people tend to do), he simply justifies what he was saying.  The purpose of the sentence is to give the question a reason to be asked.  "What's this?" does not have any content and could be considered a stupid question, but Perry gave the question a little depth, and put his innocent tone into it.

If I were to put Perry's thoughts when he said this quote, I believe that it would seem like this, "Why would anyone make a blank book?  Books are for reading, but this book has no words to read."

"It's a Journal. A scrapbook for words.  You have to do the writing." -Gram


There were many ways Patricia Wood could've made Gram explain to Perry what a journal was, but the way she chose was the most appropriate.  If you've read any of my other posts on this book, you know that Perry isn't the sharpest kid in town.  He does, however, learn very quickly when put into terms that he can understand.  This shows how much Gram truly understands Perry.  I also believe that when Gram calls the journal, "A scrapbook for words," she is trying to give Perry a motivation to do the scrapbook.  She is trying to make it fun.  On the flip side,  she says the word "have to" in the last sentence which seems to instigate some feelings that would make it seem like a chore.  Both ways, this quote truly shows how much Gram really understands who Perry is, and how to show him something new.

I believe that if we turned her implications into literal sentences it would sound like, "The point of a blank book is to write in it.  Sometimes writing in it will be fun, other times it will be dreadful."


"What a gyp.  Did it cost less than book-book?"-Perry


This quote's is rather childish.  Remember, Perry is a grown man.  This quote highlights how old Perry is mentally.  His mind processes data like an eight year old.  He still could not see the need for a blank book!  Let us look at the word "gyp".  The book was published around 2008, which makes the book quite recent.  Personally, I don't hear the word "gyp" as often as some of it's alternatives such as "rip-off"  If we take a look at the Author's (Patricia Wood) personal history we see that she recalls a place by the name of "Casey's Drive-in on Aurora Avenue". She also recalls that "For a dollar, you could buy a deluxe hamburger, fries, and a milkshake -- and get change back."  The word gyp, might have come from a time in the past.  It has to be recent enough that the price of food as significantly changed, but distant enough from the present that "gyp" is still a word that is used, even if it is not used often.  I am not entirely sure, but I believe that she simply brought that word back into her memory when she was writing this passage.  Now look at the question that Perry has proposed.  If you haven't realized it yet, every quote that Perry spoke in this (admittedly small) dialog has proposed some sort of question.  This just further emphasizes Perry's curiosity and the way his mind processes data, with many questions.  Once again, we can find more evidence of Perry's childlike mind in the word "book-book".  That screams child to me, and it should to you too.


I do not believe that Perry had any hidden meaning in this quote.  After all, he isn't devious enough to hide any negative implications in a statement.  Maybe you'll find something that I didn't see.  Comment below if you have and I'll update the post giving you credit.


(Side Note: Everett, Washington is the city that Patricia Wood's child lives in, and also happens to be where the book takes place.) 


"No, as a matter of fact it costs more."


The wording of this quote gets to me.  It has that classic motherly feel to it.  The phrase, "as a matter of fact" seems to have the same tone as Gram's famous "Don't be smart."  Another part of this statement seems to have some implications, but it's not a single word or phrase.  It's the length of the sentence.  Consider, how short the sentence is.  I believe that Gram is starting to get impatient (considering that she is a grown man's grandmother, she must be very old).

If we take Gram's intentions and bring it to words, it might sound like, "Ugh...  Don't be smart.  It actually costs more."

We have learned a lot from these characters by looking at this passage of dialog (I promise to try not to focus on characters again, though I fear it might be impossible.  Tonight I will read another 75 pages of the story, maybe another passage of dialog will catch my eye, maybe a new plot twist will take place.  Either way, I'd better start reading.

Main Characters of The Lottery".

I have just completed the first 100 pages of my book club book, "The Lottery".    For this blog post, I am going to take a deeper look into each of the different characters.  In a way, I did this in the last blog post, however, I am going to take a deeper look into the characters this time (since I have more reading to back it up)  and compare my thoughts about the characters in the beginning of the story to what I think of them now. Along with this, I am going to add another character, just to mix it up.


 " You never have to do what friends say, but you want to, because you are friends."


First off, I am going to do Perry's best friend, Keith.  Keith is a character foil and does it interestingly.  They are almost polar opposites, yet somehow they managed to become the best of friends.  While he may seem to be a bit off color at times, he seems to have Perry's best interest at heart.  Physically, Keith is much bigger, huskier, and older than Perry, but mentally he seems to be at the age of an adolescent 13 year old boy.  Frequently, he will curse for almost no reason, and seems to be more interested in women than he is about anything else.  There is a lighter side to him, however.  When Perry wanted to add Keith to a list of people Perry trusts, Keith said , " You never have to do what friends say, but you want to, because you are friends."  He seems to love finding ways to make him laugh and even though he has a rather rye sense of humor, he has a kind heart, and that's all that matters.  


"Don't be smart."


Gram is Perry's grandmother, and she is quite a card.  She is a rather flat character and serves as Perry's confident.  She also seems to have Perry's best interests at heart.  When I first began reading, I thought she was rather manipulative and might have had secret intentions that would be revealed later on.  I believe I was wrong when I came up with this thought.  As I read more and more of "The Lottery", the motherly love that Gram has for Perry becomes more apparent.  She also seems to have a saying that she constantly uses to educate Perry's behavior.  


The saying, "Don't be smart." has many connotations.  I believe that it shows just how motherly Gram is.  At a measly three words, the phrase is crisp, direct, and to the point, yet, it's one of the most valuable lesson Gram has taught Perry so far.  For the entire time throughout the story, Perry and Gram give us insight on what they truly think of the others in the community.  Whether they're a "jerk" or someone they trust, they always seem to always assess people on how smart they are (or at least how smart they are).  For example, one of their relatives was being rather braggy about his MBA.  Later Gram warned Perry that MBA stood for "Must Be Arrogant."  I believe that when Gram says, "Don't be smart," she is not meaning it literally, rather she is trying to show Perry that when it is appropriate to make a comment that could be arrogant.


"Fall is my favorite time of year, Reader's Digest is my favorite book, and my favorite candies are Hershey's Kisses.  I like to wear flannel jackets, I bounce when I'm happy, and my bike is blue with red spray paint."


Perry is innocent.  His innocence has surprised me time and time again.  I almost forgot he was an adult.  The way he talks, the way he thinks.  It screams 7 to 9 years old at me.  He will randomly insert a fact about himself in the strangest places.  As the protagonist, we get the pleasure of what he thinks every time an event takes place.  However, the most prominent quote I could find was "Fall is my favorite time of year, Reader's Digest is my favorite book, and my favorite candies are Hershey's Kisses.  I like to wear flannel jackets, I bounce when I'm happy, and my bike is blue with red spray paint."  What that had to do with anything is beyond my comprehension.  The words that this sentence followed was an event that took place with Keith at their jobs.  Anyway, Perry is quite innocent.  In a way, he seems to have a better time than anyone else.  Even when he is taunted, he seems to have a positive glow that deflects the insults.  Perry is one of those rare people who are immature in an innocent way.  Unlike Keith who had the mind of a thirteen year old, Perry acted like he was 8.  That is not to say that, being 8 is a bad thing.  I envy his unconditional happiness.  Maybe the L, in Perry's full name truly does stand for lucky.


As I get deeper into the story, I'll be sure to come up with deeper thoughts on these characters.  Maybe my views will skew completely on what I think about Perry, Gram and Keith, but as of right now, I am fairly certain that I understand these characters now.  In the next blog post, I'll try to focus more on the book's namesake.  After all, what would an innocent young man like Perry do with 12 million dollars?

The Lottery

 "My name is Perry L. Crandall and I am not retarded." -Perry

This round of book clubs got me the book titled "The Lottery".  So far, this book has been centered around a young man name Perry.  Perry is an extremely interesting character to write about and as I get farther in the book, there are sure to be more characteristics that will be revealed.

The quote I have displayed above reveals something interesting about Perry.  The fact that this was the first thought Perry shared with us the innocent nature that Perry has.  If you were to talk to someone on the street, no one would feel that, that sentence is nescary to speak.  I believe that Perry feels a pang of pride when he reveals that fact about him.  In the beginning pages, he reveals that when he was younger people called him names such as moron, idiot, and retard.  Maybe when he found out the fact that he was not retarded, he felt a sense of pride and happiness.  Maybe this is how he copes with the memories of being teased as a child.  There's more to Perry.  Perry is actually borderline-retarded.  According to Reader's Digest (his words not mine) an IQ number has to be lower than 75 points in order to be considered retarded.  His IQ is 76.  That shows the innocence within him.  Any other person would have been embarrassed to reveal that number as their IQ.  Perry stated the fact with no emotion.  That is not to say that Perry is completely oblivious.  In fact, Perry understands that he is slower than other people.  However, he does not let it deter him.  He has many ambitious goals such as memorizing the entire dictionary (albeit at a fairly slow rate).

 "No, it's not a mistake to rethink.  Rethink means you get to change your mind.  You're never wrong if you just change your mind." -Gram

Another prominent charter in the book Lottery is a woman who Perry refers to as "Gram".   The quote above is merely one example of one of the many lessons (tips?) that Gram gives to Perry, and Perry follows them blindly.  Gram (presumably short for Grandma) seems to care very much about Perry.  She raised him for most of his life, and comforts him in his troubles.  She is the one who tells Perry that the L in his middle name stands for Lucky.  She is the one who tells Perry that he is not slow, every one else is simply too fast.  However, there is a dark side to Gram.  She seems to be manipulating Perry.

"We add and subtract people from our list [of people we trust] all the time.  Sister Margret used to be number five on the list, but Gram took her off because she tried to collect money from us... When Sister is nice to us at bingo, we put her back on the list." 

The "list" is a list of people who Perry should trust in case of trouble.  She bases the list off of how someone seems to be treating her that day.  Does that sound a little wrong to you?  She also misleads Perry at times like when she told him that an MBA meant that someone "Must Be Arrogant .  Or when she told Perry that them playing Bingo and the lottery wasn't Gambling because "Gambling's something people do that loses money, Perry."  I'm not saying her heart isn't in the right place.  I truly believe that she cares for the well being of Perry.  It's just that sometimes I feel that she cares more about the well being of herself.

Of course, Perry and Gram seem to be living a fairly happy life.  They keep on buying lottery tickets, dreaming of a day when they win the lottery, but as of right now they haven't won anything yet (contrary to what the title suggests).  Maybe the next chapter.

The Future of Printing

AirPrint, ePrint, even Google Cloud Print, these days it seems that everyone is trying to get in on the future of printing.  Yet, I have always wondered what the need was for a new standard of printing.  Drivers take minutes download, and they're a one time hassle free experience; why do I need AirPrint or ePrint?

It's because printing today sucks.  It's not the drivers that suck, it's the experience of printing itself.  That's where Apple, HP, and Google are going wrong.  Installing drivers doesn't bother me, having to wait my turn (especially when a lot of documents are pending) bothers me.  Having to worry about the page being formatted differently when it gets printed bothers me.  Having to worry about sufficient ink and paper bothers me.  None of these problems are cured by any of Apple's or Google's solutions, however HP has a great idea in hiding.

First off, let's think about the advantages of printing as opposed to leaving the document or web page on your screen.  The first advantage is that paper is generally more mobile than a computer or even a netbook.  If you need to bring a typed up document to a meeting or to school, it's a lot more convenient to bring a couple sheets of paper than a netbook.  The second advantage is being able to edit a document physically (via a pen, pencil, highlighter, ect.).  Of course there are built in tools in applications like Microsoft Word that allow you to track changes, but most of these tools are clunky and unintuitive.  The last advantage is peace of mind.  Despite advances in computer fail-safe technology, many businesses prefer to keep hard copies of important data as well as digital versions.  Don't ask me why.

Back to HP's solution.  Hiding within a gigantic amount of printer is the HP Photosmart eStation e-All-in-One Printer - C510a .  Instead of sending documents that you want to print to a printer, you send it to a tablet.  From their you can decide whether you want to print the document or not, otherwise you can keep the document on the Android based HP tablet and use the screen on the tablet as digital paper.  


This Tablet is extremely maneuverable weighing in at less than half-a-pound, yet it does not give away screen estate with a large 7 inch (diagonally) display.  So, we can check mobility off the list.  Now, with the many apps in the Android Market (the tablet runs Android 1.6) there is bound to be an app that allows you to edit .doc and .pages documents with digital highlighters and pens.  You can easily pick up an app like PenUltimate that can do these things for only 99 cents, which is less than a pack of pens at Staples.  Now we can cross editing off out list.  Last on our checklist is peace of mind.  Since this tablet runs a Google Operating System, it takes advantage off all of what the Google experience has to offer; mainly, Google's forte is the cloud.  Almost every service they built takes place and store information in the cloud, which allows you to access it from anywhere and to not be afraid of losing the document.  The ideology is simple.  If you lose this HP tablet, but you still want to access your files in dropbox, google docs, box.net. ect. you can.  No matter what.  It's like insurance for your files.


HP really has established itself of the years as a company that innovates in printing, however this time HP's true innovation is being hidden away in lieu of a product that is easier for consumers to understand and more likely to have a mass adoption.  However, as time goes on and more tablets materialize, HP will have lost it's opportunity for taking the credit that it rightfully deserves of creating the future of printing.  Then again, HP might have something even better in store for us.