"The blind side"

We saw a movie in class today. It was about a black boy that has lived a difficult life. One day he is picked up by a women. She takes him with here home and takes care of him. He become a part of their family. The by him clothes, a car and they help him in school. The holw family becomes closer after big Mike is in the family. He is the perfect American football player. He is tall and big, so when he finally learn how to play, he is the one that everyone wants to have on the team. He is nice and friendly, but he seems scared and careful. His mother is alive, but he does not want to live home. One day he meets his twin brother, they were separated when they were born. I didn't see the hole movie so I don't know how it ended. But I think that it ended well, and that he got the collar ship.

TV debates in the UK

There have been decided in the UK that there should be a TV debate with the biggest political parties before the election. This includes Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown and David Cameron. They are attending three debates in three different places and with different hosts and themes.

The rules is like this: There are three 90-minutes sessions. They will focus on domestic policies, international affairs and the economy. After this the audience can ask questions direct to the candidates. The candidates will prepare only one contribution each, because it is three themes. They just have to answer without preparation on the rest of the question. They will only have 60 seconds to answer each question. One more rule is that the audience is not allowed to make noises in the middle of the debate. They can only applause at the beginning and the end. No screaming or nothing.

All three of them seems to look forward to this, and think it is a good idea. It can make people more interested in politics, and they can ask the questions they want to hear something about. It can encourage and answers many questions people have. Maybe the way the contestants answers questions and how they behave, is a part of convincing people who to vote for.

The TV debates is really important in this particular election. Gordon Brown has not done so much for the country, and he has been followed by a lot of rumors and things lately. The reason why they have this debates is that they will try to restore trust in politics. They will have the chance to talk to millions of people at the same time. Everyone is tired of politics and politicians. People think that they are just the same and that nothing is going to change. That is why they have to prove them wrong and make people interested in politics again. It is a great opportunity for people to find out what the politicians stands for and see how they look and who they want to have as a leader in the future.

In the US there are a lot of TV clashes that dominates the US presidential elections. Many times the debate has changed the polls, and a candidate that were in the lead lost the election, maybe because of just a wrong sentence. For example in 1976, when Gerald Ford lead in the polls, but managed to say;

"There is no Sovjet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration." After this sentence, his momentum stopped and Jimmy Carter won the election.

Like in the UK they use the debates to gain the trust of the people, to make people interested and to show the people who the yare voting for. They can make their final decisions by watching the show, and everything can turn. So this is a really important part of the US elections. Now it looks like the UK will follow in the same track as the worlds only superpower.

The Falkland Islands

In 1960 Captain John Strong, was the first Englander to chart the Island; Falkland Sound. This name was given after the First Lord of the Admiralty.

In 1832/33 The United Kingdom wanted to have the power over the Falkland Island. This was after Argentina ignored appointment with the British, like Luis Vernet as Governor over the Islands and over fishing rights.

When we come to 1966, the Island was raid by Armed Peronist. Later he surrounded.

Friday, 2 April 1982 the Falklands War/Conflict starts. This was a war between the UK and Argentina, over the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands. It started with Argentina's occupation on the Falkland Island and South Georgia. It lasted for 74 days, when Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982. The war were actually not declared, but it just happened when Argentine attacked. Britain retook the Island by amphibious assault and the Island remained under British control. Even if the Island actually belongs to Argentina, they shows no sign to claim it back, even if the claim is in the Argentine constitution after its reformation in 1994. The wad led to the death of 655 Argentine and 255 British servicemen. Also three civilian Argentine were killed.

The only thing I found about 1992 was that a diplomatic relations between Argentina and the UK were resumed in 1992. There were also reopened embassies in London and Buenos Aires.

In 2010 the Argentine government, discovered that ships were sailing through Argentine territorial waters to Falkland, South Georgia and South Sandwich. They wanted to require a permit, as a part of a dispute over British oil exploration near the Falklands. Also the British have begun with drilling for oil, really near the Falkland, but the claim that is does not affect the Falkland-controlled waters.

So these are the cases here. It was not easy to find so much about a lot of there dates. But I searched and looked a lot around on the internet, and found just a little bit about each date.

Question time - 24 February, 2010

Question time is a meeting and an opportunity that MPs and all the members of the House of Lords gets, here they can ask the government ministers different questions that they want an oral answer on. The prime minister answers questions every Wednesday. The MP mostly asks an "open question", so he can ask a supplementary question on any subject. These question times can last for many hours, and the one I was watching were on Wednesday 24 of February, from 11.30am to 7.45 pm.

Gordon Brown came after 28 minutes, and started to send condolences to the ones who lost some people in Afghanistan. This calmed everyone down, before the questioning started. He talks slowly and his whole body language is calm and relaxed. I notice that everyone is relaxed and the audience is quiet. This lasts until David Cameron ask Brown what he think about the situation on a hospital, were many hundred people died after being mistreated. This open up for loud discussions between the audience and the heath starts to build up. Sometimes it is so loud that the speaker has to interrupt and tell them to be quiet.

Both Cameron and from the Conservative party and Brown from the Liberal party, appears to be calm and well prepared for this question time. Brown uses his body, especially his right arm to make a statement. The tone in his voice is emotional, easy and comfortable to listen to. He answers to all the questions without problems. Cameron also have good questions, but some of them are irrelevant and is made just to hang out and make fun of Brown.

If we look at the hole debate, it seems to me that many of the audience don't respect the one that is speaking. They shout out what they mean when they mean it, so the ones who are talking is often being interrupted and disturbed.

If we look at some examinations and poles it seems like the Conservative party is going to win the election this year. The time will show.

My opinion on "the Road"

I have now read all the pages in “The Road”. Sometimes it has been easy to read and others have been more difficult. After reading the book I took myself in thinking about the book. What was it really about? How is it possible to make a movie about this book? The last question I asked my parents about, and they answered that not all movies need to have action and all of that. The movie has gained really good critics, but I can’t see how the movie can be that good. This I say, because I don’t think the book was that interesting. It didn’t have so many episodes were I just can’t wait to turn to the next page and find out if they live or die.

I think I have been really dependent and spoiled when it comes to a lot of action in books. The last books I have read have been books about crime and investigation. Like Jo Nesbø’s book “Panserhjerte”. I think that I don’t have much patience and I get easy bored.

But after all, when I think about it, it is a strong book and I see how people like it. It has a lot of descriptions and a lot of details. The story is deep, and shows the bond between a father and his son. They struggle to survive and they don’t talk much, but still they have this invisible bond that makes them unbreakable.

I think it should have been another end in the Road. I see why it ends as it does, but I don’t understand it. The whole book shows signs that they will succeed and find what they are looking for. So why the author chooses this end is a mystery for me. It makes the book totally different from almost every other book I have read, but still I like it better when it ends well. This is because I don’t like reading about sad things and peoples everyday life. Even if it is many million people left on the earth, there are too many adults and children that experience the things the boy and his father do.

I really hope we can watch the movie that is made from this book. It is interesting to see how the director has construed the book and what he has chosen to have in focus and to drop out. I also wonder if he has managed to make it exiting and easy to follow, even with that little material to work with. I am not saying that the book doesn’t have much content, but I am just saying what I think and how I experienced it when I read.

Charles Wilson's war

Charles Wilson was a U.S Congressman, born in 1933 and died in 2010. In the Movie Charles Wilson is portrayed as a man with a lot of friends. He is a free spirit, and it don’t seems like he is that interested in what other thinks about him. He loves drinking and women. He also tried drugs, but this was discovered. I don’t know what consequences this had for him. He does not quite understand what is going on down in Iraq, until he visit a refugee camp down there and can see for him self. After this he is much more understanding and wants to do everything to help them.

I am not that into the details of this Cold War, but I think that I understood a little bit more after watching the movie. The movie is about Charles Wilson and it is based on a true story. We follow the war in Afghanistan which was fought between them and Russia. Russia had there helicopters and Afghanistan had nothing. They had just old weapons and no money to develop the military. Wilson wanted to send money and weapons down to them, but it could not come out that they had got the weapons from the United States.

I think the movie was good, but it was kind of hard to follow everything that happened. This war in Afghanistan was terrible and many people lost their lives. The Soviet wanted to support the Marxist government that the ex-prime minister in Afghanistan started. The problem is that the Superpowers go into a country and they help them and everything, but then they leave. Afghanistan had nothing to build the country up with. Wilson wanted to give them 1 million dollars to build a school, but no others wanted this. They said that they had helped and now they had to take care of them selves. When the Cold war ended, the world could let the air out and sit down. Everyone where afraid of a third world war, but it did not happen. Yet.

The Road

For some weeks we are going to read ”The Road” in my English class. It is a book written by Cormack McCarthy, a movie based on the book has been released in the US and will probably some to Norway soon. I haven’t read that much, but I’m going to The Canary Island next week, so I will read the book on the plane or on the beach.

The first pages I have read are about a man and his son. Something terrible has happened to the world and all life seems to be destroyed. In the book we get a pretty grim picture of the world and here is ash all the place, and all the houses are abandoned. It is cold, but we don’t know which month it is. They boy and his father are walking endlessly on the road. I don’t know where they are going, but it seems like they might be headed towards a place where the father has been before and maybe a place where they will find other people.

They have to set camp far away from the road since they are scared to be seen. This I don’t understand, who are they frightened of? I think it is other people or animals, but I don’t know. There are some dialogs in between, but they don’t talk a lot. It is mostly the father’s thoughts that are revealed to us. Many say that they think it was a really boring and less interesting beginning, but I actually think it is ok. There are a lot of descriptions and the whole scene is just scary. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book, and maybe watch the movie in class someday!

In class, February 2.

Today we did something different in class. We were divided in 5 groups. We were divided in; journalists, researchers, designers, dividing materials, and teachers. Everyone had different tasks. The topic was American politics, which we are going to have a test about next week. I don’t think everyone learned that much, because someone were not supposed to write anything, just guide the other groups. So those who wrote texts were teachers, and made tests, they learned the most.

Regine and I were designers and we made a glogster on the internet. I think that it was fun, because it was so different from what we have done before. I don’t know how much I learned, but I learned at least to make a glogster. I think we made a nice glogster that is easy to look at and learn the main topics. Here is the link for what we made:

http://hilasp.glogster.com/american-politics/

Why Obama?

For a long time now, I have only heard and read about people who like Barack Obama and who are happy to have him as their president. In the documentary we saw in class, we got to hear and see the opinions of those who are against him. Many of said that they are not ready to have a black president yet, especially those who live in the south. Not so many years ago there were a lot of discrimination taking place against African Americans, and many of those who were discriminating do not feel ready to have an African American as their president. I will say that most of the black people in US are really happy that Obama won the election, because it is an important step into the future. They can finally say that race discrimination in the US is over. But what about all those white people who cried with anger when he won? The Republicans believe that Obama is going to drag USA into the dirt and that he is going to bring down the country. They say that they are scared to death about what is going to happen. They are scared of loosing more people to the war in Iraq and in more terrorist attacks.

I don’t think the Europeans know how important the country is for the Americans. They really love their country and are so much more committed to issue that came up during the campaign. I have never seen a European who was so engaged in issues involving hos or her country. In this documentary it seems like so many people are against Obama, but still, he won the election. This means that even more people like him, and thinks that he is going to be a great President for the country that means so much to them. The majority has spoken.

The vally of Elah

Before Christmas we saw a movie in English class called “The vally of Elah”. It was about a father that got a massage that his son was missing after a night out with some of his friends in the military. No one knew what had happened to him, but he was found besides a road. There he had been stabbed with a knife many times and put on fire. His father refused to give up trying to find out what happened to his son. He drove to this place and started to talk to his son’s friends and investigating on his own. At the end he finally found out what had happened and who had killed him.

This was a really strong and emotional film. It is about the relationship between a father and his son. And his strong intentions to not live without knowing what had happened. It is always hard to see things like this, because of the emotions that come out when someone looses a person that is close to them. I think it was a really good film, but sadly we did not get to see the end. I strongly recommend it.

Senior project.

In this semester, I have to work on writing better texts. I should use more time on the assignments we are given. Also be more aware in class, on what we are supposed to do with the things we are writing. If I should post it in the blog, or deliver it to the teacher or just have it in my onenote. I have to make sure that I have done everything in class that we are supposed to do.

In my senior project I think that I want to write about the black Americans. From when they lived in America alone and how they were treated under the colonization. The discrimination that lasted for many years and how America at the end, finally saw black people as equals. I think maybe that I want to watch a movie too, so that I can give examples and talk about the movie in the project too.

I hope that the project will be exiting to write about, and that I will learn a lot that I didn't know before.