The Daily Snake Bite

A man has been reported to have fallen into a well while attempting to reenact the nursery rhyme of 'Jack and Jill' to his 2nd grade class on May 14th, 2009. James Nilsen has been identified as the teacher of the 2nd grade class and the man who had fallen in the well. Students later told us, when questioned about the incident, that they have been learning the story for over 2 months while getting ready to preform it in a school talent show. Marie Clare, an 8 year old 2nd grader told us, "The class was very into the story and loved to see James act."
It is true, however, that an increased amount of children have been seen hanging around wells in the past two months and two childre were even forbidden, by local police, from going near wells on account of 'trying to see if someone could actually fall down a well'. Of those two students, one was in James' 2nd grade class.
Which led witnesses to believe that James could have easily been pushed by the very student doing exactly the same to children of his age.
Not much is certain about the 'accident' but as far as police have informed us, James is out and suffers minor injuries. Police let readers know, "James Nilsen's 2nd Grade class has been informed to stay away from violent nursery rhymes as they can impact a child's mind just like Spiderman has influenced many other children to want to jump off buildings and shoot web from their hands, it just doesn't happen that way."

8th Grade Stop Motion

Isn't 8th Grade Computers just awesome! :D

Shabanu Glog

Inside The Fire - Disturbed

Lyrics Inside The Fire lyrics
There's a lot of opinions about what this song is about and or why he wrote it. What many seem to agree on is that there is the devil or something convincing someone to trade his soul to see his loved one once more after she commited suicide. It makes sense with the lyrics. It could be just the song itself stating that the devil is telling him to give up his soul but the story behind the song/lyrics means something else. In one gig, he said that he had a girl friend when he was 14 and his family was christian and his parents wouldn't let him dat her. She was addicted to meth (methamphetamine) and commited suicide, she went to hell and he wanted to get back with her. This is a great song though and i love listening to it; it's definitely something i can listen to over and over again! Hope you enjoy it too.

There is another music video for this, which goes more into the song and shows what has happened. The video is a little freaky though, if you want to see it, here's the link on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlG9R944Z1Y

Land of Confusion - Disturbed - Ten Thousand Fists

Great song, Great lyrics, Great video!

Twister Film Critique - Science & English

When I, Dr. Montage Van Wetherchaysrr, watched the 1996 movie ‘Twister’, I was both impressed and a little put off. Being a meteorologist myself, I’ve got some opinions about the dramatic, cyclone movie.

Twister is directed by Jon de Bont starring Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, and Carey Elwes as tornado chasers. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) became a storm chaser after her father died during a tornado storm when she was very young. Bill (Paxton) was also a storm chaser before he chose to become a successful weather man. Bill and Jo had invented DOROTHY, a design that would release thousands of tiny sensors when a tornado passes over it, when they were working together but when Bill decided to leave, his relationship with Jo was destroyed and they decided for a divorce. They hoped that DOROTHY would give them the information they, and the world, needed for an accurate and early warning of tornadoes as well as more important and wanted information. The catch is that their rival group of storm chasers created another of the same design. Both groups, anxious, set off to be the first to test their design. On his way to get the divorce papers from Jo, Bill shows up with his new fiancée Melissa (Jami Gertz) while a tornado is spotted and decided he would come with to see how DOROTHY handles. Throughout the rest of the movie, the tornadoes become worse and worse while they attempt to gather the information that seems so important to them.



After seeing his movie I had many questions to think about and I was certain that many other viewers had the same in mind. First of all, a tornado can vary in intensity regardless of shape, size, and location. This is very greatly shown throughout the movie where the viewer can see the different sizes and damage of tornadoes and I was very delighted to have seen the amazing F5 tornado. What some people might debate on would be the damage the tornadoes in the movie made and how many times Jo and Bill would survive going through one.
In my opinion, towards the end of the movie, it became more of a love story than about the fact that they were running away from an F5 tornado. F5 tornado’s wind speed can reach up to 261-419 mile per hour and the relative frequency is less than 0.1%. One thing that made this scene very unreal was the fact that F5 tornadoes inflict damage like no other tornado known; Strong frame houses lifted off foundations and carried considerable distances to disintegrate, automobile sized missiles fly through the air in excess of 100 miles, trees debarked, steel reinforced concrete structures badly damaged, and incredible phenomena will occur. So how is it possible, two people tied to a pipe going 30 feet (or meters) underground survive an F5 tornado passing directly over them? Sure, the pipes would hold perfect, but there is the substantial amount of debris in any tornado, even more an F5, that seemed invisible in the movie. It is almost certain that Jo and Bill would’ve been impaled or stricken by some form of debris in the tornado. This also happened many other times during the movie where they had passed directly through a live tornado and survived with minimum damage. This is a photo my dear friend Mike Branick took while passing through an area hit by a tornado with F5 damage.


This is a chart of the different intensities of tornadoes to give you an idea of where an F5 tornado stands. (The graph might be small, so click on it to enlarge)

However the many twisted facts of this movie, I did have my fair share of favorite scenes. One of my favorites includes the very beginning of the movie where it shows how technology was back then with tornadoes and the little amount of time given for people to just about be able to get to their tornado cellar or wherever they would stay for shelter and protection. People literally had 3 seconds to 3 minutes of warning before they would be eaten up by these devastating storms. Technology advances from then and today have changed all that and the death rates have dropped dramatically, which was part of what Jo and Bill aimed for.

All in all, I find this movie to be a jaw dropping, eye raising, educational movie that should be watched throughout science classes. It shows dramatic scenes of tornadoes that any student would be captivated to learn about. Thank you Mrs. Fuller for letting me enjoy this movie with your science class and allowing me to insight you on my opinion and perspective about the movie.

Tribal People in Pakistan - By Logan & Linnea

There are many tribes in Pakistan some ancient some more recent but the main ones are older. Before the religion Islam came to be, mass migrations took place and many people went to Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia. Which lead to the forming of the main tribe the Huns, they are also known as the Iranian Huns because they come from mainly Iranian descent and to be known different than the Mongolian Huns. The Huns are one of the thirty six clans of the Rajputs. But the main group of the Huns were absorbed into Hinduism and converted into another group leaving the smallest group of the Huns the only trace left of their tribe.

The second most important tribe is the Punjab. The majority of the Punjab tribe consists of many clans such as the Rajputs and the Jats, another large tribe in the Cholistan tribal area, and their clans such as the Awans, Kkokhars, Ghakkars, Khattars, Janjaus, Arains, Gujjars and many others. Many people from this tribe “claim common ancestry from Otub Shah who is said to have core from Chazni. But geologists say that they were probably told to believe that by one of their previous ruling kings. Almost all tribal people there frequently claim about having ancestry of famous ruling kings and conquerors of India and other Arabian pioneers. But a large number of them do have ancestry from Afghanistan, Iranian, Turkish, and Arab invaders and immigrants. As you can see the tribal people of Pakistan have a very interesting and knowledgeable ancestry.

One of the greatest migrations of Central Asian nomadic tribes in the history of Pakistan are the Huns. White Huns or Epthalite and they had been in the Oxus Valley and came to Pakistan. Around the 5th and 6th Centuries was a turning point in Pakistan’s history because of the mass migrations of the Huns. Politically, it was a turning point because before the arrival of Muslim, they were the ruling class in Pakistan and most of Northern India. Socially, the turning point was because most of the tribes of Pakistan are traceable to them.

When entering the Medieval Period there was confusing. The hordes of foreign invaders were being absorbed into Hindu body politic which began a new grouping of states. Until the arrival of Muslim Turks, this period was known as the Rajput period. Invasions and consequences of the Huns broke historical traditions and those traditions are rarely seen beyond the 8th century.


Interview:

1. Have you ever met any tribal people In Pakistan?

The tribal people we knew were Gujjars (also spelt gujar). While some Gujars have settled down and are living a modern lifestyle, others remain in the traditional extended family tribal groups of 15-30. They wander the northern areas of Pakistan and cross into Afghanistan and India (Kashmir) with their flocks of mostly goats, but also sheep and camels. The camels are used as transport animals. They used to wander freely across borders searching winter and summer pastures (lots of snow forces them south), however, what with the current political problems between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, their migratory patterns have been curtailed. I believe that many small groups do still wander between India and Pakistan crossing at out of the way points on the border.
The women tend to wear long skirts (like many Roman ladies here in Europe) and generally are in fairly colorful clothing. The men wear the traditional shawar chemise of Pakistan/Afghanistan men. Both men and women generally keep their heads covered. The women wear cheap bangles and necklaces. The unwashed children tag along behind their parents. (Washing children is believed to cause the bad spirits—the jinn—to want them, so if you never wash a kids’ hair (yuck!) then evil will be kept from them.

The gujars we know lived in small tent encampments—sometimes circular in formation—and would stay in one area grazing their cattle until they moved on either from over grazing or forced to move by local inhabitants.
One group of gujars (probably about 20 people) stayed each year for maybe 3-4 years in the late 1980s near the famous archaeological site of Axial (which I led tours of over 115 times.) They made the most amazing huts because they stayed all winter—maybe 4 months at the one site. The huts were formed with a circle base with packed mud/mud bricks (maybe stone in them???) about 4 feet high. A narrow mud platform extended from this outer wall. (Used for sleeping/shelf) Then a teepee like structure was built up from that with long poles. Over the poles there was a little plastic sheeting (not perfect like the American Indian teepees). On top of the plastic and bound into the poles was thatch. The fire for cooking and heating was in the center of this teepee hut with smoke escaping where the poles came together. Inside the hut was very dark, smoky but warm and snug on a 40 degree night.
WE were privileged to go into the hut because their was a very sick (dying) infant and my husband being called Dr. Mates, they took that to mean he was a doctor of medicine. We provided them with a little money to take the baby to a near-by famous missionary hospital.
This group of Gujjars were obviously not in the best of health.

2. What are the main rituals that they do?
This I cannot tell you. Some Gujjars are non-practicing Muslims, while others are Hindus. They probably keep some of the religious traditions of the areas visited. In Pakistan there are a number of Muslim religious shrines (not approved of by Saudi Arabian Wahhabi sect) and they could worship at those sites. While I have seen Gujjars at the shrine sites, they were watching their flocks and not in active worship.

3. Do they have a specific religion?
Varies between Muslim and Hindu depending where they live (Pakistan or India) However the groups are uneducated and have only simple beliefs rather than a formal set religion. That is why I would call them “nominal believers” in Islam or Hinduism.
4. Did they live In houses or some other type of shelter?
See above. Their tents were not “official” tents (ask your Dad!) but rather makeshift affairs made out of poles and various old thick cloth pieces which your mother would call a dirty old rag.

5. Do they welcome foreigners?
Not really. They did not mind when we took pictures, but as all peoples they just wanted to be left alone.

6. Do they sacrifice people to the gods?
No.(Only Muslim terrorists do that in Pakistan.) The tradition among these people would be to sacrifice an animal from their flocks.
But perhaps not educating your children, or giving them basic shots or giving the matted hair dirty kids a bath, is sacrificing them to tradition. I am sure the death rate is high for kids in those families. Imagine having no clean water to drink.

Shabanu Anticipation Guide Prompts

1) It is possible to experience love at first sight.
Agree/disagree: Even though someone can look at someone and say, “It was love at first site.” It was probably because of the way she/he looked and how that person saw that other person through their eyes. If they were to talk to each other, they might have found out that they really weren’t for each other or that they had nothing in common and the ‘love at first site’ was really nothing real and serious. And I think for somebody to say they love someone, they have to really know that person and not just from what they first saw.

2) Two complete strangers stuck on a deserted island could learn to love one another (and yes, stay with one another after being rescued).
Agree/disagree: I think that over time, if two complete strangers were stuck on an island, they would learn things about each other from spending that amount of time having to survive and depend on one another to be able to survive. I think if you were stuck on an island with a stranger you would learn much more and treasure much more than being stuck with a stranger in a restaurant for the same amount of time. I also think it depends on what you go through on that island that will determine if you stay together when you are rescued. So I would disagree because I don’t think it would be love, I think it would be more of a ‘stick together to survive’ relationship.

3) It is a good thing to sacrifice your happiness for the desires of others.
Disagree: It is natural for someone to want to be happy but sacrificing your happiness to fulfill the desires of others is wrong in my opinion. I think someone who wants you or leads you to sacrifice your happiness to make them happy thinks that you and your feelings aren’t as important as them and how they are feeling. If it makes you unhappy making someone else happy I think, unless you get something goo out of it, you should think about what you’re doing before you go and do it. For example, I saw a movie the other day called “Little Miss Sunshine” and in one scene the teenage boy was asked to go on a road trip to California for his sister’s beauty pageant and there was no way he was going to go. His mother then kind of bribed him and said, “Well, if you go then I will let you go to pilot school.” So the boy decided even though he’s not going to have any fun at all, he’ll go and when it’s done, he’ll be happy because he’d be able to do what he wants and what makes him happy. I think that is one scenario where it’s okay to sacrifice your happiness for the desires of others.

4) Women in your society are free citizens.
Agree: Women in my society are free because it is a democratic society. Women can vote like men, they can do the same jobs as men, they are paid the same except for maybe a few pluses and minuses. However, I do believe that it is a male dominated society. Living with 3 brothers myself, I can see how they think of women and what women are capable of doing compared to men. I would not be able to play the Xbox because I was a girl and to them, girls don’t play the Xbox because it is what guys do. I’m not saying that’s what guys in my society say or think because it’s me and my brothers but it’s an example of some things girls aren’t allowed to do because they are girls.

The Outcome of Angry

FACT: That is an Alligator that eats that mans head.

The Outsiders: Movie or Book?

I like the movie in many ways, but I also have to say I enjoyed the movie as well.
I do prefer the book because it gives us more information about Sodapop and Darry’s relationship with Ponyboy and Dallas’ relationship with Johnny. I also liked how it gives us a better ending and keeps us interested to the very end. I think the ending of the book is better because it shows what happened after all the trouble with Johnny and Dallas. It tells the readers that even though this is all over, Ponyboy might not ever be the same with all the horrible things that have happened and that kick to his head. It also makes us want to read more and when the book ends, it’s like, “But, I want to know what happened with Ponyboy!” I think the book is very well written and explains and shows so much more than what is read. What I mean by that is, the words have so much meaning and it gives the readers a visual of what is going on in the story even though it is all written down in words.

The movie was good because I could see all the characters and places. I liked how the director chose to change certain things in the movie or add things to make the movie make sense. An example of this is when Ponyboy and Johnny are at the movie with Cherry and Marcia and Tim Sheppard comes to the boys and asked where Dallas is because he slashed his tires. This didn’t happen in the book because it already explains earlier that Dallas did that, but in the movie chose not too so they added that character into that scene to give us an understanding of Tim and Dallas’ relationship. I didn’t like, however, how much that was taken out of the movie.
I enjoyed the rumble more in the movie because it wasn’t in a first person view of Ponyboy, we saw the whole bunch of boys fighting and could make out who’s winning and how a rumble would look like.

Overall, I think I like the book much better because it’s so much more detailed and the imagery is so great without even needing pictures.

Podcast

Episode – TLC’s Miami Ink Tattoo Talk
Date – December 20, 2006
Time – 7:23 / 11:47
Website – ITunes

Description of Episode:
"Welcome to the Miami Ink's Tattoo Talk, brought to you by TLC."
The artists from TLC's Miami Ink share stories of how they got started.

"We would like the Welcome Charlie Corwin to the program, he is executive producer and creator of Miami Ink on TLC. Charlie is with original media, Charlie thanks for being here"
Meet the creator of the hit TLC show Miami Ink: Charlie Corwin.

why I Picked This Podcast?
I watch Miami Ink on TV and after a few days of watching it, I came to think that the show was really good and I have always wanted to hear more about how the show started and why. The show is very inspiring and shows amazing art by amazing artists. I find it very interesting to listen to why people are getting Tattoos and sometimes they are inspirational or very sad or just plain unique and funny. The artists are amazing people and are fun to watch and listen to what they have to say.

Ami starts of by saying a lot about what tattoos mean to him and that a lot of his family members were tattoo artists. Later on he explains the tattoos he has and which one means most to him.
Chris Garver talks about one time when a band came into their shop to all get tattoos and how it was a bonding experience for the band and as well as the artists. He also confesses what he wouldn’t get tattooed. Chris states, “I think it’s easier to become a tattoo artist these days, but it’s not easy to become a good one.”

In the second part of the podcast TLC interviews the creation of the show Miami Ink. He talked about how it all began and what he did to get the show started. He also described what he looked for in tattoo shops while he searched for the right tattoo shop for his show. The making of the show brought on great relationships with the tattoo artists that will last for a lifetime and after the show became a hit, most of the tattoo shops that turned down his offer to make a show about them called realized they messed up turning him down.

All in all, I really enjoyed listening to this podcast and recommend anyone who is interested in tattoos to listen to it.

PP NEWS (plant & planet)

On Sunday 12, 2009 a frozen man sitting on a bench was found. Sandy Alberts was first to discover the unidentified body, "His frozen postition looked like as if he was afraid before he froze and i first thought maybe someone was pulling a prank but when i came closer i could see behind the snow a man's face and then i realized this was something big" she claims. At 7:37 AM she called the police and they were on the scene within 15 minutes.

Police are still uncovering the body and the cause of the freeze. Roger Berad, a police officer, states "It's very rare that this could happen during this time of year. I understand that it's very cold but not cold enough to freeze ones body. So far, all we have to tell the public is that the man was either sitting there for a very long time without moving or he was killed to begin with and someone covered him in snow which then froze to his body form." There will be more about the story as we recieve more information.