A passage from The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck:
"The Western Land, nervous under the beginning change. The Western States, nervous as horses before a thunder storm. The great owners, nervous, sensing a change, knowing nothing of the nature of the change. The great owners, striking at the immediate thing, the widening government, the growing labor unity; striking at new taxes, at plans; not knowing these things are results, not causes. Results not causes; results, not causes. The causes lie deep and simply- the causes are a hunger in a stomach, multiplied a million times; a hunger in a single soul, hunger for joy and some security, multiplied a million times. The last clear definite function of man- muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need- this is man."
Wow... John Steinbeck is a great author. I just love his writing... it's really powerful. He wrote this in the Great Depression so it makes total sense.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Reused Bike Tires?
Does anyone have any old bicycle tires lying around their house/garage? Since my APES class has already taken the AP we are spending the rest of the year building GO-KARTS!! The catch is that they have to be made out of 50% post consumer content. Please let me know if you have anything that could help!! Large cardboard would even help. I am so excited for this!! We are going to race them at a hill at our school. A friend of mine and I are in charge of publicizing the event. I want to get people who come to donate to charities like The Sierra Club, Jane Goodall's foundation, and WWF.
:D
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Intrinsic Value
Read slowly and with emphasis. Read this like you would a poem.
"So easy that the wonder goes out of work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of land and the working of it, and with the wonder and deep understanding and the relation. And in the tractor man there grows the contempt that comes only to a stranger who has little understanding and no relation. For nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates and the length of fiber in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt nor water nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more; and the land is so much more than its analysis. That man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself. When the corrugated iron doors are shut, he goes home, and his home is not the land." -Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
"So easy that the wonder goes out of work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of land and the working of it, and with the wonder and deep understanding and the relation. And in the tractor man there grows the contempt that comes only to a stranger who has little understanding and no relation. For nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates and the length of fiber in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt nor water nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more; and the land is so much more than its analysis. That man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself. When the corrugated iron doors are shut, he goes home, and his home is not the land." -Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
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