Blog 1

Recently, I was bored and wanted to read a book, so I went to the library (duh) and came across a book called Tattoo Atlas , by Tim Floreen, which I realized I could blog about. The book is science fiction, but is quite realistic and revolves around a research laboratory that is trying to cure a sociopath named Franklin. The book is told from the first person perspective of Rem Braithwaite, the main character whose mom is trying to steady Franklin’s sociopathic brain.  Rem has a relatively normal school life with friends, but constantly relives Franklin’s crime against fellow classmate and friend Pete Lund. Franklin, an outsider to his classmates, harbored and still harbors ill will to Pete and others because of inconsiderate words or actions and feels justified to have killed him. Rem’s mom, concerned for Rem’s well-being and jumping at an opportunity, admits Franklin to her research center and implants a chip into his brain that will allow her to “control” his brain’s feelings.

          I started reading this book, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, around a week ago and finished it  3 days ago. It's written by Robert D. Putnam, a professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. The book looks into how different it is two grow up in the America of today compared to that of 50 years ago, and whether the idea of the American Dream is still real today or just a myth.           The structure of the books is discussing a different aspect of a child's bringing up and education and gives the reader two stories in each chapter - one of an affluent child growing up in an American city, and one of a poor child growing in that same city.           This book gave me a lot of insight into what it's like to grow up in America with different incomes and parents with different educational backgrounds. The book also shows ways in which the government can help close the opportunity gap which exists in America, which wasn't as big 50 years ago. The auth

The Dialogues of Plato , written by the philosopher Plato, are a collection of script-like arguments the philosopher makes. This style of writing, as opposed to the traditional 3rd person text, shows two characters discussing philosophical ideas. In the dialogues, it is Socrates, Plato's teacher, and some other individual(s). The "premise" of each dialogue is that Socrates approaches a certain person and asks them a question pertaining to the nature of virtue, knowledge, poetry recitation, etc. Because the book is written in this way, it makes it much more interesting to read than other philosophical texts. Additionally, Plato's arguments are elegant and clear, having a different point of view than you or I would have on the matter. He uses the most obscure connections to prove points. Sometimes you are convinced he is on a tangent, but he then connects it back to the main point at hand. In the book Ion , Socrates confronts a great poetry reciter named Ion. Ion cla