things that I would bring with me in case of a fire

1) a picture of my family(in case any of them did not survive the fire)
2) a backpack(so I can carry all the stuff I bring with me)
3) some packaged food that will not perish (for emergencies)
4) a cell phone (so I can be contacted)
5) some clothes (to wear)
6) my glasses (so I can see)
7) my laptop (many pictures of family and friends and other  important files stored on it)
8) money (emergency for food, water of clothes, transportation)
9) passports/other government ID (in case we move after the fire/ need to rebuild house)
10) a sleeping bag (for sleeping while the house is being rebuilt)

Epilogue reaction

Marcus is now fighting injustice in a diferent and better way. He makes a video that shows how Carrie Johnstone gets out of court without punishment even though she did not say anything during the entire prosecution so that the prosecutor could not prove anything against her. This is abuse of  the judicial system because the prosector could not fight the case fairly. The public knows that she did horrible things to the prisoners in the Gitmo-by-the-bay, but because she did not say anything, the prosecutor could not defend his or her case. The rule "innocent until proven guilty" should not apply to this particular case because the defendant did not do the same to all the other prisoners. The prisoners were all guilty until proven innocent, and that was injustice. But Marcus is now protesting peacefully because the video does not cause harm to the gerneral average person like the jamming did. He has learnt his lesson that you cannot use the same antics that the DHS use to fight them. You have to be peacefull, otherwise you will get blamed, like the Xnetters, and eventually punished, like Marcus was the second time the DHS caught him. 

Chap 21

The ending of the book was just as everyone would have expected, Marcus overcomes the DHS. But other than that general statement, many event happen that you would never think would happen at the ending of a book. First, Marcus is still a criminal after the DHS was pushed out by the state troopers. He still has to go to court to be prosecuted and he is even charged with a crime and is forced to live at a halfway house for three month. Also, instead of Darryl being normal after he gets out of the Gitmo-by-the-bay, Darryl seems like his scarred for the rest of his life or traumatized for a long time to come. Darryl says the same things over and over again, even when asked different questions. He probably had to endure the punishments Marcus did, but for a longer period of time. Zeb had said before that the DHS questioned him about the XNET, which Darryl had not known existed. He would not have any answers like Marcus did to get out of torture. Anyone would have been traumatized after being punished brutally for no reason. Marcus seemed to be best friends before, but after the Bay Bridge attacks, Marcus said that they rarely spoke to one another. Everyone would have expected everything to return to normal, but it didn't. Marcus and Darryl's friendship seems to have been destroyed by the DHS.

end of chap 20

End of Chap 20

I was surprised at the amount of good food Zeb found for free. He said that you could get yogurt and fresh fruits at the grocery store because the owners would throw away a whole box of fruit if one went bad and the owners threw away yougurt one day after the best before date. There is a lot of wasting in San Francisco, and in general, everywhere, and I  think that it would be easy to cut down on the amount of wastage in every city. I was also shocked to read that the DHS had located Marcus even while he was in hiding. He was eating food out of the garbage can and living in a tent under the highway. I found it surprising that Marcus considered himself a victor after he was in jail. He was tracked down even while he was trying to hide. The government could do what ever they wanted with him and he could have a horrible life, but stil he thinks that he had won. He was waterboarded once or twice to get his login information from him. I cannot even imagine what they would have done with him if the severe haircut lady and the guards were not arrested.

Up to pg 119

I did not get to read a whole lot today but here is what I thought about what I read. I think that it was really ironic that Marcus ended up running right to the place that started everything, and right where the picture on the phone was taken. Out of the whole city, he ends up in the same place that changed his life forever. He reads the article about Darryl on the same bench that he was rested on after he gets stabbed in the BART station. I thought it was very lucky that the first two people that Marcus asks for an Xbox and a TV allowed him to do so. The people could have turned him into the DHS, but they didn’t. It was very risky, but I guess he didn’t have any other option. The children admire him like a hero, but they shouldn’t. He was just an ordinary person who used all of his resources to bring down the DHS in San Francisco. It was something anyone could do, and they just had to have the motivation that Marcus did. So Zeb contacts Marcus and asks him to come underground with him. He does and gives the phone and pictures to Van to give to the article publisher. Van ends up kissing Marcus as soon as she meets him. I will be honest in saying that I would have never expected Van to be the one to reach out to Marcus. 

Chap 19 reaction

The scene with the DHS and the vampmob reminded me of the concert in many ways. The Xnetters did not disperse when told on both occasions and there was loud chanting of "DON'T TRUST ANYONE OVER 25" and "BITE BITE BITE BITE BITE" from the crowd. Eventually the crowd was gassed in the end, even though the vampmob was completely non-violent. Ange's disappearance seemed to contribute to Masha's possibility of being two-faced. She also gets all of Marcus's IDs and also uses the DHS authority to drive Charles away. I think that Marcus was being a little impulsive about Masha's phone and the picture of Darryl. Masha had driven off Charles, who had evidence against Marcus and could have gotten him arrested, so she had proved that she was trustworthy. She had also told Marcus that she would send the picture to him after they reached Los Angeles. But instead of waiting, he tries to reach for Masha's phone which leads to Masha almost deleting the picture. So Marcus takes the phone and runs out of the truck, risking getting caught and any chance to get innocents like Darryl out of prison. He could have gone underground and come out after the story is published and people are alerted about the DHS's activities. 

Chap 18 reaction

I found that the idea of LARPing would be fun. It seems like a good way to spend a couple days having fun with friends. Charles's character is revealed a little more in this chapter and it shows how much of a bully he really is. We already knew that he was a tattletale and gets Marcus and others in trouble on a regular basis, but now we know that he has little self control or chooses not to follow the rules himself while getting others in trouble. He seems like the type of person who turns on his friends or acquaintances. I think that the distraction would not be big enough because if people think that LARPers are the biggest hoaxers, then they would not show up. If the police show up and the DHS shows up, I don't think that there will be enough people to hide Marcus, Ange, and Masha. Then they will be caught and there will be even less of hope that Darryl and other innocents will get out of the Gitmo-by-the-bay. I think that the spread of information is reflected by the hoax that Marcus made up. Misinformation travels very fast and it shows because the Italian blogger's thoughts eventually reached America's newspapers, where it was corrected.

Chap 17 reaction

I think that the little bits of information like the one about the cryptology one in chapter seventeen. I cannot believe that the government made it illegal to encrypt personal numbers because it is so common today. Computer have firewalls that have encryption numbers and banks use them to lock safes. I do not believe that the Masha is not really in the web of trust. If everyone invited only people that they trust with their lives, I don't see how someone working for the government infiltrated the Xnet and the web of trust. I also don't trust Masha because she is not gaining anything from helping out Marcus. After she tells Marcus she has to flee also. I believe that it is a trap and Marcus is falling headfirst into it. After the DNS tunneling downloads the video about the severe haircut lady who was talking about the Xnet, I believed Masha a little more, but the whole video could have been scripted and Masha could be getting Marcus into the Gitmo-by-the-bay. I don't have any idea how Marcus and Ange will manage a big distraction, but in all the chaos, Marcus and Ange may be able to escape. 

Chap 16 Reaction

Darryl's dad showed was the DHS had done to some people even indirectly. He was decribed in the book as being a wreck because he was one very orderly and clean, but after Darryl's disappearance, the house was very dirty and smelled. There were dishes, bottles, and cans on the floor everywhere.  Because Darryl had disapeared, Darryl's dad was in depression. I think that telling a journalist about Marcus's grievances was a bad idea. First off, the DHS said that they would be watching Marcus and they said that he should never tell anyone what happened on the Gitmo-by-the-bay.But Marcus already knew of the risk and accepted it becuase this was the only was the only way to get people to listen to the Xnetters and Marcus's story without passing them off as a bunch of foolish adolescents. Then, I don't think that one news paper article that tells the truth and is from the perspective of the Xnetters can compete with the hundreds of articles that look down on the Xnetters and see them as obstructing justice. One newspaper article will not stop the DHS. I don't like the fact that Marcus did not tell his parents about his online avatar, M1K3Y, and his influence on the Xnet. It was a big part of his story because this was how he tried to fight back, and it didn't work. 

Chap 15 reaction

I was very surprised that Darryl had survived the stabbing incident. I thought that the DHS had not picked up Darryl because the severe haircut lady did not know who he was. I thought that either the DHS had killed him to destroy the evidence that they were imprisoning innocent people or had left him on the street to die. Zeb would not have been lying because his voice was very sharp and intelligent and he had very white and straight teeth considering that he was a homeless person. The media tricked Marcus again in this chapter. The newspapers had titles like "I COULD GET METAL ONTO AN AIRPLANE, DHS DOESN'T HAVE MY CONSENT TO GOVERN, and XNET KIDS: USA OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO"(85). The media is trying to manipulate the meaning behind the words by not including the context that the sentence was said in. This was not Marcus's intention at all when he said this. He meant to say that if kids could mess up the DHS, then terrorists could too. He meant that if the DHS was not doing its job then he did not want it controlling his life.

Chap 14 reaction

I thought that the media kept twisting the information about the concert and making the whole story one-sided. The story made the adolescents at the concert seem like people that are allies with the terrorists. The media made it seem like the adolescents were the terrorists of America. I found it very intentional that the books that Marcus had to read for his independent study were similar to memories of his life. Some of the quotes from Howl reminded me of the DHS and how the "best minds of [Marcus's] generation were destroyed by madness"(77). I think that Ange will eventually betray Marcus. The first meeting by themselves, and the police show up and gas everyone. She has history with some of Marcus's friends and the meeting with Van was very awkward for both Van and Marcus. I also think that the idea of a press conference is a very bad idea and will eventually backfire against the Xnet. So far the media has been very crafty and twisted thought again and again. The media will probably do it again and it would be beneficial for the media to write a story about rebellious kids rather than the unjust government.

Little brother chap 7- 13

The Xnetters are being rather extreme and radical in the war against control. Granted that the government and DHS are mainly at fault in this book, Marcus is at fault as well. The Xnetters jam the Fastpasses and cause chaos among the citizens of San Francisco. They choose to have an illegal gathering where there is loud noise in a busy neighborhood. The opinions are mainly one-sided. The media and the government have their ideas set in stone and so do the extremists like Marcus. There is no gray area in the scale. Even Marcus sees that the misery of his father and mother is somewhat his fault, but says that he is too far into the mess to stop now. To stop tyranny, they are being rebels and causing more chaos. The Xnetters are no better than the government is if they trouble the average citizen of San Francisco just as much.  The government basically has an unlimited supply of money and power to stop Marcus, so I agree with Vanessa and Jolu that Marcus will never win the war, even if he is right in his intentions.

Little brother chap 1 -6

The beginning of the book somewhat reminded me about what our school is doing with IPads and the one-to-one program for next year. The students were given laptops, just like we are given IPads. If we were to be monitored throughout the day, then I would not want the system. Ultimate control and tyranny would not be very useful in schools, but would be a waste of time and money. Marcus and Darryl find ways to avoid the systems in the school. Eventually it would happen to every system, so it would only be effective for some time. The school was also being very crafty while trying to monitor the children. The students in Marcus’s school are tracked down by library books, just like we would be monitored by IP address, to work around the ruling of the Supreme Court. They used gait-recognition software instead of face-recognition software and they bug library books instead of the students. If the whole point of laws is to only be an obstacle and not prevent this level of control to happen, then we should not even have laws to prevent because people are capable of overcoming these restrictions. If this would be the end result of the one-to-one program, then the system would be more of an obstacle for learning, rather than being helpful.

To Kill A Mockingbird movie 3/17/11

Today, the movie ended and Mr.Tate decides that Bob Ewell fell on his knife, killing himself. I believe that it was actually Arthur Radley who kills Bob Ewell. He probably did not do it intentionally, but in the act of defending Jem and Scout, it might have happened. He was rather shy and awkward later at Scout's house, but that is probably because of his nature and his plight. It would seem ironic that the same person that Jem and Scout were afraid of because of rumors that he killed someone would kill someone to protect them. I feel like that would have been a better ending to the movie.

To Kill A Mockingbird movie 3/16/11

Today the movie got a little more interesting because the showed the case. The movie did a good job of showing the little details that made the true result of the case more obvious. Mayella was very frantic and changed the mind often. It makes it seem like she was lying. Tom was very calm and kept his composure through out the case. It makes it seems like he was being honest. Again, several parts of the book were neglected, like Mr. Dolphus Raymond. My opinion of the movie didn't change from yesterday.  

Today in class, we watched part of the movie of the book, To Kill A Mockingbird. I felt that the director of the movie missed some key scenes in the book. The movie skipped over Burris Ewell and most of the school part of the book. The movie also didn't include the scene when fire ate Ms. Maudie's house and the first encounter with Arthur Radley. Christmas at Finch's Landing and Scout's fight with Francis was not included. I also thought that the movie was harder to follow because it skipped around much more. It went from Dill's arrival to the Robinson Case to Atticus shooting the rabies-infected dog. I thought that the movie was surprisingly good even though it was a black and white movie. Overall, I like the book better than the movie.