You are probably familiar with the TV Show, The Walking Dead, the #1 most watched drama and thriller show on TV. If you watched this show, you would know that their show has a habit of killing off all of our beloved characters. But “Killer Within”, the fourth episode of the third season, really stands out because this episode is one of the most gut-wrenching episodes of the whole show, leaving you on your couch with a bunch of empty boxes of tissues. “Killer Within was written by Sang Kyu Kim, a producer of The Walking Dead. It was directed by Guy Ferland, an American film and television director. “Killer Within” didn’t just have one death, but TWO deaths of our favorite characters that have been with us since the beginning. These were two of the most memorable characters that have died, and their deaths are even sadder. If you are not yet passed season three of this show, then stop reading now, because, of course, SPOILER ALERT (If you do decide to continue reading, don’t get mad at me if the show is spoiled for you).
Our episode starts off with Rick discussing with Daryl, Carol, Glenn, T-Dog and Maggie that they should keep the prison as their permanent shelter to continue surviving. But while exploring their brand new territory, they come across six prisoners stuck there from the beginning. T-Dog suggests to the group that they let the prisoners join, but Rick disagrees and says that they should keep their prison, his idea being supported by the others. Axel and Oscar refuse because the cell block is full of dead bodies and the yard outside, where they plan to bury them, is filled with walkers. So Rick sticks them in one of the cell blocks, planning to give them one week's worth of supplies and kick them out. Hershel Greene, father of Maggie and Beth Greene, starts to walk once again after having his leg amputated from being bit by a walker. He is assisted by his daughter Beth, Lori Grimes and Carl Grimes. But literally five seconds after being outside in the courtyard, the entire courtyard is filled with hungry walkers, looking for flesh. This results in the group separating. But while T-Dog is securing the prison yard inner gate, a walker comes up behind him and takes a bite out of his shoulder. He runs away, being supported by Carol into the tunnels of the prison. Meanwhile, Rick, Daryl and Glenn rush from outside of the prison’s fences, and Glenn is the one to discover that the gate’s lock broken. Rick starts to believe that Axel and Oscar are the ones who broke the fence. But they are off the hook as soon as the alarm to the prison goes off, making problems much worse and attracting many more walkers. Oscar tells Rick that the backup generators are making the alarms go off, so the group hunts down those generators to shut the alarms off. Now let’s jump back to T-Dog and Carol. Carol assists the injured T-Dog. But T-Dog refuses her help, knowing that he’s eventually going to die. After they are blocked in the corridor by walkers, the brave T-Dog sacrifices himself for Carol by charging at the walkers and pinning them to the wall. This makes matters worse for T-Dog, because he is just eaten alive by the walkers. He yells at Carol, “GO! I’M DEAD!”. Carol, horrified at what she is seeing, flees away from T-Dog to hide, which introduces our very first heartbreaking death of the episode. Now on the opposite side of the building, Lori goes into labor. Maggie and Carl rescue her and drag her to the boiler room. But when Lori attempts to push out her baby, she starts to bleed profusely. Lori eventually realizes she will not be surviving childbirth. After telling Maggie to give her a C-Section, Carl spends his last moments with his mother, because all three of them know that Lori is not going to survive the C-Section. Carl hands Maggie his knife, and Maggie performs the C-Section. from too much blood loss, Lori dies in the middle of it, concluding our second tragic death of the episode. Maggie pulls out the baby out of Lori’s stomach, and pats it’s back to help it breathe. Maggie then turns to Carl and informs him that he is the one who has to shoot his mother in the head to prevent her from turning. Then she goes to check and see if the corridor is clear. While Carl looks over his dead mother’s body, he remembers the talk that Rick gave to him about never being able to be prepared for someone to die, but he still had to be ready if someone did. After Maggie checks the corridors, we hear a gunshot off-screen, signalling that Carl has just shot Lori, and he walks away. Meanwhile, the cause of the alarms going off was actually just one of the six prisoners prisoners from earlier, Andrew. While Rick and Andrew fight, Daryl secures the door against lots of walkers, and Oscar picks up Rick’s revolver. Andrew then starts to try and persuade Oscar to kill Rick, but instead, he shoots Andrew. He hands Rick his revolver and turns the emergency generators. Rick, Daryl and Oscar reunite with Glenn and Axel in the corridors. On their way out of the corridors, they discover the dead body of T-Dog, being devoured by the walkers that killed him. After killing the walkers, they also discover Carol’s head wrap, and the five assume that Carol is dead as well. When Rick and the group exit the corridor, he runs up to Hershel and Beth, panicked, asking if Carl and Lori had made it. Rick starts to give orders to the group about where they should search, but before he can finish, Rick is interrupted by the sound of a baby’s cry. He looks over to see Carl and Maggie, who are crying. Rick is confused about the absence of Lori, but after Maggie stops him from going into the prison to search for her, he finally has to face the truth that she is dead. The most heartbreaking moment of this episode is when he collapses to the ground and sobs about his wife’s death. That is a brief overview of what happened in “Killer Within”. In this episode, we have lost T-Dog and Lori, who had been in the show since season 1! These deaths will always stand out, being tied as the two #1 saddest deaths in the show. We have lost so many others in the most current season, which is season 5. A lot of those characters were there since the beginning as well, but not one of those deaths will ever compare to the sadness of T-Dog’s and Lori’s. For a rating, I would give this episode a rating of 10/10 because it was one of the strongest episodes of The Walking Dead that has ever aired (this episode left me sobbing in my room!). When you start to become a fan of this show, you get very connected to the characters. I got very connected to T-Dog, and when he died, my heart was in agonizing pain. He was one of the bravest characters in the show, and he showed the most bravery he has ever shown when he sacrificed himself for Carol. I did not care for Lori very much. In fact, she was always one of my least favorite characters throughout the show. But she had the most dramatic, heartbreaking, and agonizing death of the whole show so far. And even the thought that her own son had to shoot her in the head so she wouldn’t turn is extremely heartbreaking.
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Note: This is written in response to an episode of the classic family friendly comedy, “Full House”. In it one of the main character’s DJ starts to stop eating and obsessing over her weight. The show tries to say this is all because she wants to look good in a bathing suit for an upcoming pool party, but I doubt that is the only reason. Anyway, DJ passes out when at the gym with her family due to lack of eating and possibly even over exercising. Once awoken, her family confronts her and DJ admits what she has been feeling and what has been going on in her life. It all ends with a hug and a sappy speech, DJ’s baba telling her that she doesn’t have to worry and that she is beautiful.
To DJ from the 90s American sitcom, “Full House”, When they made your illness into a half hour episode ended with too sweet music and uncomfortable hugs, I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t get a toothache from all that sugar they gave you to help the medicine go down. But I’m sure more calories was the last thing you needed, and that sugar was just another form of salt in your wounds. I know, Hiding away to fit into a bathing suit, that whole show was a mold, that your character couldn’t eventually fit into. Just like that bikini. The one tying you up the real problems jabbing uncomfortably at your abdomen. Yet, it was never about that was it? Not the pool party or those other girls. It was control, because you had none. After the episode that buried you in cheap jokes and a stale personality. Trying to keep on your postcard image. You just lost the ropes you were trying to hold onto so tightly. All over the world it’s people like you and I being shoved back into a postcard, and wrapped up in bow, sprinkled with sugar. It’s all of course artificial sweetener, zero calories, just to make sure we stay in the plastic wrapping. Because we’re not supposed to talk about those things. We see a body we tell ourselves is not beautiful, when there are soft curves and no sharp edges we do not look like the mirrors that we’ve been told hold the essence of beauty. Instead we are thrown the leftover glass fragments, shoving them in our sides, we crucify ourselves. Trying to finally mold into the crystal cut shape that has been created by us. Everything reflected back, mirrors are the perfect carving carving tool. They are the shapes we are supposed to take. So go to your room now DJ, and keep your mouth shut, as long as nobody sees you, it’s not there. Confusion,
Is watching the clock tick backwards while the glass breaks forward around it. Emptiness is the hollow pit of unworthiness buried deep under internal organs and strings of intestines. I am unworthy because nothing can be found, everything hidden in cavernous gaps in my mind. When I search for sound I find meaningless letters, Why can I not burst with emotion? Such a barren desert. Is it a sin I secretly wish for imperfection? To see my thin, clear skin become pock marked with blemishes? Let me break down in tears that will wash away this stillness, but my eyes are dry. WARNING: THIS ARTICLE TALKS ABOUT SEXUAL CONTENT THAT IS RELEVANT TO THIS TOPIC
In 2014, Detroit started the “Detroit Rape Kit Project”: a project where rape kits are tested for DNA in order to arrest rapists that have prowled freely because the kits weren’t tested. This project was started when eleven thousand untested rape kits, some from the 1980s, were discovered in an abandoned Detroit police storage facility. According to Kim Craig, who wrote “100 Serial Rapists Identified after Rape Kits from Detroit Crime Labs Are Finally Tested” for the news program WXYZ’s Detroit website, fourteen prosecutions have resulted because of the testing of these abandoned rape kits. One of these cases includes DeShawn Starks, a perpetrator who raped four women. Craig states that in February of 2003 Starks pretended to be experiencing stomach pains and approached a woman, who was returning home. He then proceeded to pull out a gun out, robbed her, and took her to a secluded area, and he raped her. The woman went to the hospital, where she had a rape kit completed. Her rape kit then sat in a storage facility for ten years. He raped another woman in 2003, and he raped two other women in 2013. Starks could have been stopped before he was able to rape three other women if the DNA from the initial rape kit (on 2003) had been run through CODIS, a system that has the DNA profile of anybody that has an arrest record or for a job, such as a nurse. If crime labs had done this, they might have been able to identify Starks before he raped the other three woman. Using the results from rape kits is a simple way of stopping somebody from being assaulted, yet it doesn’t happen often enough. In today’s society, we have so much technology that can be used to solve crimes, such as rape, yet we have about 400,000 untested rape kits that are sitting in storage facilities. Instead of letting them sit, collecting dust, we should be testing them, allowing survivors to find some closure and preventing rapists from walking on the streets as a free men. After a person is sexually assaulted, she might have a rape kit done; however, this may not happen if the survivor does not want to go through with one. A rape kit is a four to six hour examination that is done to collect any and all evidence that might have been left behind by the rapist. This could potentially include the DNA from the rapist. If DNA is left behind, this can be a powerful tool that can be used to find the rapist since everybody has their own DNA profile, which means nobody has the same DNA sequence, unless you are an identical twin. Once the rape kit is taken, it is supposed to be sent to a crime lab to be tested in order to find out if any DNA had been left behind, but instead, it often is sent to a storage facility, where it can sit for decades. In the United States, rape kits often remain untested, which has resulted in an accumulation of 400,000 untested rape kits, causing a backlog. What can cause a backlog? A backlog, according to End the Backlog, a program that is a part of the Joyful Heart Foundation, can have several causes. One of which is how rape kits tend to be sent to storage facilities and forgotten about, and since only three states- Illinois, Texas, and Colorado- require rape kits to be counted, tracked, and tested, making it easier for rape kits to be forgotten about in the other forty-seven states that aren’t required to count, track, or test the kits. Another way is a lack of resources. Crime labs may be under funded, or police departments don’t have the technology to track the kits. If it’s just a matter of tracking the kits or more funding for crime labs, why doesn’t the government lend a hand since both programs are run by the government? End the Backlog states that a rape kit can cost from a thousand dollars to a thousand five hundred dollars. Some people may use the excuse that it’s too expensive, and the government is already tight on money. The only problem with that argument is that the government has spent thousands of dollars in some pretty outrageous ways. Accordinging to Michael Snyder, who wrote “60 Completely Outrageous Ways the U.S. Government Is Wasting Money” for infowars.com, in 2012, twenty-five thousand dollars of federal money was spent on a promotional tour for Alabama’s Watermelon Queen. If that money had gone toward testing rape kits, about twenty-five thousand rape kits could have been tested. Which seems more important, a tour for Alabama’s Watermelon Queen or giving about twenty-five thousand rape survivors closure? Another excuse that people may use in order to make the fact that our number of untested rape kits has gotten so out of hand is that some rape allegations turn out to be false. False rape accusations do exist, but they do not happen as often as some people think. Although this does occur, it does not mean that all allegations are false; only about two to eight percent of rape accusations are false. This number is still on the high side, but what kind of people would we be if we continued to let the rape kits sit in storage facilities? Especially, when testing these kits could mean a survivor is finally able to put this horrific event behind them. We know how much of an impact the kits can have on a case (the ability to put a rapist away), so why is this not a priority? According to End the Backlog, another reason might be the fact that some police departments don’t prioritize sexual assault. Another reason is whether or not the case is likely to move forward. Often, the survivor has been through so much trauma, and the police tend to misunderstand the actions of the survivor and interpret it to be the survivor not cooperating or not being credible. This can lead the survivor to hesitate to proceed with the case. Finally, if the police are already aware of who the rapist is, the police don’t need to test the DNA. The question we all need to really think about isn’t why we don’t perform the test, the question is, why did we let this get so out of hand? After Deshawn Starks was arrested, he was prosecuted and put away for forty-five to ninety years. Now that he has been arrested and put behind bars, the four women that he assaulted can look for closure that he is no longer a free man. According to Soraya Chemaly, who wrote “50 Actual Facts About Rape” for the Huffington Post, about fifty four percent of rapes aren’t reported. Obviously, this can be due to good reasons; the survivor might know that nothing is going to be done. That if they have a rape kit completed, it will probably end up in a storage facility. The survivor also might not feel comfortable, or feel ashamed. Nobody that has been raped should feel this way. They should not feel as if nothing is going to be done for them. Since Detroit has started their “Detroit Rape Kit Project”, they had tested one thousand six hundred rape kits out of their eleven thousand by March of 2014. Out of those one thousand six hundred rape kits, one hundred serial rapists were identified, and in New York, they’ve started testing their kits, and their arrest rates for rape have gone from forty percent to seventy percent. If by only testing one thousand six hundred kits a hundred serial rapists are discovered and placed behind bars, how many rapists could be identified by testing the other estimated four hundred thousand kits? Humans possess a very prominent chin. They were previously thought to have evolved to assist humans with chewing, but this is not the case. The issue with this theory is that it overlooks the lack of an outstanding chin in Neanderthals and other primates. These other species have a more powerful bite than humans, so why would a prominent chin have evolved if it did not aid in chewing? Recently, a new theory surfaced. Nathan Holton and Robert Franciscus, anthropologists from the University of Iowa, theorized that the human chin did not grow, but rather the rest of the skull shrank. This shrinkage can be attributed to early humans becoming increasingly social. As these early humans settled down into communities, violent competition decreased and an exchange of goods, ideas, and communication increased. Scientists believe that this triggered a decrease in testosterone levels which then resulted in the shrinking of the craniofacial structure.
WARNING: THIS BOOK REVIEW MENTIONS SEXUAL CONTENT FROM THE NOVEL
To truly know an individual, one must have a keen understanding of his or her physical and mental attributes. The simplest way to achieve this is to start with a fact, a label, a name. This fact, label, or name may serve as a gateway for the beginning of a friendship. One may believe he knows that football player scoring on the field because he knows his name-Brad. But does he know Brad’s secret? How Brad genuinely behaves? Who Brad loves? The Perks of Being a Wallflower displays a uniquely compelling writing style-anonymous letters and personality, humor and emotional depth-that author Stephen Chbosky couples with an incredibly realistic 15-year-old point of view. The Perks of Being a Wallflower commences in roughly modern day, as Charlie attempts to cope with his best friend’s suicide and the other scarring troubles that relate to his adolescence: He must learn to assert himself, trust, and participate by spending time with his newfound friends, Sam and Patrick. Throughout the novel, Charlie writes to an anonymous reader: By writing letters to this anonymous person, he feels listened to; He must use these letters as a gateway to finding his voice. The Perks of Being a Wallflower possesses components that create a satisfying and original style of writing, void of cliche: Despite the use of unaddressed letters and fabricated character names, the reader feels personally connected to both the story and characters. The novel also contains humor buried within such individuals as Patrick, accompanied by raw, heart-wrenching emotion. Within his letters, Charlie clarifies the purpose for his upcoming use of inaccurate names and the lack of a return address: his intent is to stay anonymous. This would normally cause writing to seem distant and detached, yet the reader develops an intimate relationship with Charlie while learning his story. The use of this anonymity, instead, enhances the writing as the reader’s curiosity and interest-drawn toward the recipient of the letters and the true identity of the characters-grows. One intriguing and comical personality is Patrick. Even as Charlie cries over his kiss with Sam-while Charlie’s girlfriend sat next to him- Patrick manages to fill the moment with humor: “‘It’s too bad you’re not gay.’ That made me stop crying a little bit. ‘Then again, if you were gay, I would never date you. You’re a mess.’ That made me start laughing a little bit. ‘And I thought Brad was fucked-up. Jesus.’ That made me laugh a lot more” (136). The novel maintains small uplifting moments that counterbalance the powerful emotion to come as Charlie finds himself in love with Sam. Earlier in the novel, Charlie stumbles upon a poignant poem with a disturbing ending: “That’s why on the back of a brown paper bag/he tried another poem/And he called it ‘Absolutely Nothing’/ Because that’s what it was really all about/And he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wrist” (72-73). Charlie gives this poem as a secret santa gift to Patrick, yet it reappears later, fraught with deep emotion. As he hears Sam and Craig having sex, he thinks, “for the first time in my life, I understand the end of that poem. And I never wanted to. You have to believe me” (96). Each moment within The Perks of Being a Wallflower carries a purpose that contributes to the overall captivating style of writing. The writing style is not only enthralling, but also conveys the perspective of a 15 year-old, despite the author’s age of 29. Charlie’s youth is portrayed through his sexual immaturity: He feels the need to pose and elaborate-in childish ways-on such questions as, “Do you know what masturbation is?...Wow!” (21); He continues to exhibit childish reactions as he thinks, “in those movies and television shows when they talk about having a coffee break that they should have a masturbation break. But then again, I think this would decrease productivity. I’m only being cute here. I don’t really mean it. I just wanted to make you smile. I meant the ‘wow’ though” (21). Charlie’s simplistic interpretation of sexual acts is on par with that of other 15 year-olds. He even feels guilty and ashamed after having “a weird dream. [He] was with Sam. And [they] were both naked” (21). For a 15 year-old, this is often a new experience, and this applies with Charlie. Despite his ability to continue life without saying a word to Sam, he demonstrates the kind of honesty typical of youth and a lack of experience. Stephen Chbosky shows that Charlie’s thoughts and actions are comparable to those of other teenagers, creating a credible, more likeable, 15 year-old point of view. The Perks of Being a Wallflower represents the epitome of the strife that is inherent to life;I would certainly recommend it to anyone searching for the reality behind adolescence and the process of maturing. Because of these remarkable aspects, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is now my favorite novel. Books,
imagination flows, comes alive, words fly off the page, a place where words, are no longer just words, dreams become a universe, a new world, writers can share, new universes, new meaning, to words, nothing is perfect, even in books, there are plots, and solutions, Books, imagination flows, comes alive, words fly off the page In the past year alone, there have been two riots that have had the largest impact in the news. The first one was in Ferguson, Missouri. In Ferguson, the riots began after the fatal shooting of eighteen year old Michael Brown. The more recent one has been in Baltimore, Maryland. In Baltimore, the riots began after the death of Freddie Gray.
Both started as peaceful protests, but they both quickly became violent. In Ferguson, there were three waves of the protest. The first wave started on August 9, 2014, due to the death of Michael Brown, and ended on August 25, 2014. The second wave started November 24, 2014, after Daren Wilson, the officer that shot Michael Brown, was not indicted, meaning the grand jury decided to not formal accuse him for the death of Michael Brown. The third wave started on April 28, 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray and are still ongoing. So far, the Ferguson protests have resulted in sixteen injuries and two hundred eleven arrests of the public. In Baltimore, there has only been one wave of riots starting on April 18, 2015, which caused the Baltimore Orioles to close their game to the public on April 29. As of April 28, about twenty police officers had been injured, and around two hundred fifty people have been arrested. The Maryland Army National Guard troops and thousands of police officers have been deployed in an attempt to stop the burning of building and cars along with any injuries that may be caused. Baltimore also was put into a state of emergency once the protests became violent riots. If you ask me, this is not the right way to approach these issues. The protesters, rioters, whatever you want to call them, are attempting to fight fire with fire. This method has caused nothing except for injuries and arrests. If your point is to try and stop more injuries and deaths from occurring, why do something that can only lead to more injuries and deaths? I blew up
Demolished the path Ahead of me, Blocking me, Making me worse Making it worse Making everything worse. Over the course of one week, we, Tessa Sandre and Julia Spoor, interviewed multiple teachers throughout the Middle/High school. The questions we asked were, “What do you think it means to be a man?”, “What do you think it means to be a woman?”, and “What privileges do you think other men/women have over you?”. This was all in an attempt to understand how our society views gender roles and stereotypes.
Most of the answers were refreshing and filled us with hope that society had finally started to crush the gender barriers. However, we found that sexism was still lurking in the dark corners of our school’s classrooms. Yes, a majority of the teachers had respectable views, yet two or three teachers were still stuck in a pit of age old misogyny. For example, while some of the teachers stated that they thought women’s responsibilities should be equal to men’s, others shared ridiculous notations such as, “Not saying they are, but on average, men are better”, (anonymous source) and “Man goes out and takes care of family while mom stays home and works with the kids, it was nice”, (anonymous source). Although we do not agree with these quotes, we can understand where some of them are coming from. Some of the older teachers (specifically male) had been raised in a time different from ours, where gender roles were so unlike how they are now. However, one teacher in particular shared with us that he was aware of society’s recent changes, but refuses to agree with or even accept them. To each his own, right? That is what we were thinking too, until this source began attempting to explain to us how “Feminism is mythology” and “Discrimination is a myth”. Not only did we find these statements quite contradictory to this person’s earlier explanations about how discrimination was inevitable and how it will never go away, but we also found these statements rather disrespectful and ignorant especially coming from a highly respected teacher in our high school. On the other hand, a multitude of teachers had some extremely respectable responses to our questions. For example, one teacher shared with us the fact that she tends to do more stereotypical womanly things. She said it was her choice, but is it really? “Am I choosing this womanly role or is society choosing it for me?” (Mrs. Cleary) For years now, the social construct has been portraying mothers in pink aprons and pushing baby carriages. From a young age girls are taught to stay in the house while boys are told to leave it. Could years of this have influenced our future choices? After years of watching the media portray a perfect housewife and a tie wearing, workaholic father, could our decisions have been controlled to fit these tight boxes? Throughout our interviews, some teachers’ definitions of “feminism” astounded us. One teacher seemed to be under the impression that “feminism” means “anti-men.” Although many people may feel this way, what most people do not know is that feminism works to help men too. As one faculty member stated, “Emotional reactions are more accepted, experiencing a range of emotions is okay for women but not for men in today’s society.” This stood out to us because pointed out a serious error in today’s society. Why are women allowed to cry but men are not? We should able to stay “tough” with tears in our eyes. Feminism can help men with issues like these, just as much as it helps women with theirs. Feminism works toward equality for all, not superiority for women. To sum this all up, our overall goal was to truly gain a deeper understanding of what people in our community think gender really is. Although we were ridiculed and insulted during this process, we achieved our goal and are satisfied with our results. There is still much work in need of being done, but one step at a time, we will be able to stomp out gender inequality! |