Burning books

Trough world history we can find many examples on book burning. One example when it comes to this is the book burning the German Nazis performed. The Nazi started a book burning campaign on the 6th of April 1933. The Nazis Germany claimed that this was necessary to stop “Action against Un-German spirit. 

Another example is when Mao burned all the books in China. The only book people was allowed to read was the one he had written himself. Many leaders do this to control what kind of information the people in their country is reading and they feel like they have to control everything. Leaders who feel it’s necessary to do this kind of dramatic stuff often have something they want to hide. 

We can still find similar cases to this in the society we live in today. In some countries web-pages are looked to make it more difficult or impossible for people in the country to use these pages.  

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Death penalty

Formal and informal writing, Death Penalty

In this post I will try to help you learn the difference between formal and informal writing.

Death penalty

Formal)

Death penalty is a method of punishment in many countries all over the world. Death penalty used to be a common way to punish criminals. This is an interesting topic in many debates all the time.

In America, 33 of the 50 states still practice the death penalty. The most common methods they use are the electric chair and lethal injections. However, they are working to abolish this penalty. There are huge debates when it comes down to the fact if people should be sentenced to death.

People who are sentenced to death have to wait in death row for many years. In the state of California 721 inmates are waiting in jail to get their penalty. In California no one has suffered since 2006, even though many criminals are just waiting to get executed. In the United States of America about 1000 criminals have been sentenced to death, but they are not executed yet.

China is the country in the world who sentence the most criminals to death penalty. The methods they use are questionable because the government will not comment on this case.  It is estimated that about 3400 people are executed in China every year.

One of the arguments to keep the death penalty is that it scares people to commit crimes. However it is not proven that countries with death penalty have a lower crime rate that countries without.

Informal)

Death penalty is a horrible way to punish criminals. I think it’s completely wrong in every way. First of all, why should we kill criminals? I think it’s a much better option to let them sit in jail and think about what they did wrong. If you just kill them they won’t get the time to reflect on what they did and it’s an easy way out. Even though it’s horrible to take another human’s life, I would think that the criminals will suffer more by spending time in jail.

Amnesty and DPIC are two organizations who work against the death penalty. They release a lot of information about this topic to engage others.  They have a lot of information about all the people who have been executed and how it happened. It scares me to read that this one guy was hanged in 1996! This was the year I was born and it’s not a long time ago.

If everything works out the way I would like them to, we won’t have death penalty in ten years.

You can read more about the case here:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/states-and-without-death-penalty

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/home

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment

This post shows the difference between formal and informal writing. When you are writing a formal text you have to use facts and see each side of the case . If you write a formal text you won’t be able to say your own opinion as you can in an informal text. As you can see in the informal text I wrote my opinion this is just one example ” I think it’s completely wrong in every way”.  When you are writing an informal text you are talking to the reader and you can write simple. If you are writing a formal text you have to focus on the case, and your own opinion on the case is irrelevant. ” It is estimated that about 3400 people are executed in China every year.” This is an example from the formal text and you can see that it’s a fact and in formal writing it can be smart to use statistics. When you write formal its written in third person.

Hope this post helped you to understand the difference on formal and informal writing.

News from Australia and South-Africa

Here are four different news from Australia and South-Africa. They are all recent and we found them on newspapers online from the countries.

The two first articles are from Australia.

Family desperate to find missing son Samuel Carew-Reid

 The mother of 21 year old Samuel is desperate to find her missing son. Samuel is a musician who left for a health retreat on Saturday afternoon and the plan was that he was going to stay there for a couple of days. But Samuel left the retreat the same evening and since then no one has seen him. He left the retreat in a silver Subaru Impreza with the registration number 1CKA 679. He left most of his belongings behind. Including his beloved guitar. Samuel is described by his friend and family as a social person and It’s not like him to not keep in touch. He is normally always on Facebook. His credit card has not been used since he went missing and his mother is really worried.  Today, Samuel’s mother Sally-Ann Jones said many of her son’s mates and family had gone to the area to search for him. “Sam is very, very thin and he is not used to being out in the bush. This will have been his third night out in the bush…I am worried he will be cold, hungry and thirsty,” Ms Jones said. Samuel is about 180cm tall and has red hair and beard and green eyes. A lot of police is looking for him, but if you have any information please help.

Anyone with any information about  the 21-year-old should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

 

 

 

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/family-desperate-to-find-missing-son/story-e6frg13u-1226497204101

Body found in Coverdale Australia

A body has been found inside a house at Coverdale this morning. How the fire started is still unknown, but it started around 10am. Arson Squad Detective Sergeant Chris Debruin of the WA Police Arson Squad said that it probably was a male body and that it was found at the rear of the property. And the death is suspicious and is now being treating at this point in time. Neighbors confirmed in an interview they heard an explosion right before the fire started.
The explosive event may have happened inside the house says Det-Sgt Debruin. He says that a scene examination will confirm where the explosion happened

Man arrested for city cop killings in South Africa
A 28 year old man has been arrested for killing two police officers in Hout Bay, Western Cape in South Africa. He got arrested 15th October and he’s going to the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court this Wednesday.
The two police officers were last seen in Imizamo Yethu, where they also were shot. The female officer died immediately and the male died when he arrived at the hospital.
The article also mentions that since April there has been over 150 police-officer-attacks in South Africa
We found this news-article under the top-news on the site

 

http://www.iol.co.za/.

Blue flags in South-Africa

Three beaches in the domain of the Eden District Municipality- Wilderness, were granted Blue flag status at the official blue flag Beach Launch in Hermanus last week. The Gibbs- Halla says that they are extremely proud to have achieved the blue flag on their first attempt.  Blue flag is an international coastal management program that accredits beaches and boats. Beaches must meet starnards of excellence in water quality, environmental education and information as well as safety and services. 

 

Short stories

Yesterday we had to read and analyze two short stories. My friend Marie(http://saldmar.wordpress.com/) and I chose “Man from the south” by Roald Dahl and “Puppies for sale” by anonymous. Roald Dahl is a famous Norwegian writer and has written a lot of great stories.

The two stories are very different.

The Man from the south is a story about a man that loves to bet. If he wins he gets to chop of one of the victims fingers, but if they win he gives them a car. In this story he bets a young American boy who bets against him, with the risk of losing his own finger. This story is really capturing and you have to read the whole thing to see what happens when you start. This is a very interesting story, and I will advice you to read it if you want to read a short story.

Link to “Man from the south” here: http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/south.html

Puppies for sale is a really short short story about a boy who wants to buy a dog. He walks to a farm and gets to see the farmers dogs. At first four healthy dogs run towards him, but he can see one that is walking slowly behind the others. He tells the farmer that he wants the injured dog. The farmer don’t see why he wants a injured dog until the boy pulls up the bottom of his pants and the farmer can see that the boy has a prosthetic leg.

This is a moving story about love and you can tell that the boy wants a dog he can relate too.

You can find the story here: http://www.indianchild.com/puppies_for_sale.htm

The two stories are very different but they both have a moral. In Man from the south you have to read more between the lines to make sense of the story while Puppies for sale is a lot more straight forward.

Please comment or let me know what you think of the stories.