Novel Research

"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" was written by Karl Stig-Erland Larsson or better known as Stieg Larsson, a Swedish journalist and writer, born August 15, 1954. Stieg Larsson changed his name from Stig to Stieg to avoid confusion with his friend who was also named Stig Larsson and who was also an author. The name change was decided by a coin toss in which Stieg Larsson lost. Larsson was initially a political activist for the Communist Workers League a photographer and a science fiction fanatic. As a science fiction enthusiast Larsson first started off writing science fiction fanzines (amateur magazines) in 1971. Stieg Larsson founded the Swedish Expo Foundation, which was made to counteract the growth of the extreme right and stop racism in schools.  In 1991 his research of right-wing extremism in Sweden led to his first book, "Right-Wing Extremism". He then began exposing Swedish extreme right and racist organizations. In 1977, Stieg Larsson trained a squad of female Eritrean People's Liberation Front guerrillas in the use of grenade launchers. He developed a kidney disease and was later forced to quit. When he returned to Sweden, he worked at the largest Swedish news agency as a graphic designer. Stieg Larsson died November 4, 2004 from climbing 7 flights of stairs to his office due to a broken lift which led to a heart attack. After his death manuscripts were found of three completed but unpublished novels in a series. He wrote them for his own pleasure in the evening when he returned from work and never tried to get them published until right before his death. The first of the three novels, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", originally named "Men Who Hate Women" was published in 2005. The book was awarded the glass key award as the best Nordic crime novel of 2005. The second novel, "The Girl Who Played With Fire" got the best Swedish crime novel award in 2006. And the third novel of the series was called "The Air Castle That Was Blown Up" and was published in America as "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest" in May 2010. A fourth novel was left un-finished, his partner, Eva Gabrielsson is going to continue writing the novel on Larssons's behalf. After Stieg Larsson's death there was contraversy between Eva Gabrielsson and Larssons father and brother. A will was found stating that Stieg Larsson's money be donated to the Umea branch of the Communist Workers League, however since there were no witnesses when the will was written all of Larsson's assets went to his father and brother. Eva Gabrielsson and Stieg Larsson wanted to get married but couldn't because of a law that stated a married couple had to make their address publicly known. Due to Larsson's involvement in politics, having his address known would have been a security risk, so the two never married, but Eva Gabrielsson argued that some of her lovers money should have gone to her. When Stieg Larsson was 15 years of age he witnessed a girl by the name of Lisbeth getting gang raped, he never forgave himself for not stepping in and helping her. However the tragic rape became his inspiration for his novels and the reason why violence and abuse against women was such an important issue for him.

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

Writing a Review

Unicorns are amazing. They are the most majestic creatures in the whole world although some may argue that they don't even exist. A horse with a horn on its head is the most beautiful thing anybody could possibly conjure up. Not only are they beautiful to look at but they weild a magic power. Their magic power is unsure to the people of this world. In Harry Potter if one were to drink the blood of a unicorn they would live for the rest of eternity, even though they would live a cursed life it would be a magical thing of course to live for eternity. Unicorns make the world a better place, nothing excites a child or even an adult more than when someone yells "LOOK, IT'S A UNICORN". I cannot even make up a negative thing to say about unicorns. Remember when Ralph from the simpsons stuck an ice cream cone on his forehead and said "look, I'm a unitard" and the joy in his eyes? That joy is the joy of the unicorn.

Walk a Paragraph

I walked over to my door and didn't bother looking through the peep hole since it had become a daily routine for my friend to wake me up with that incessive knocking. He bantered at me to get ready so we could begin walking to the mall. I took a shower and got dressed, pulling up my suspenders one arm at a time and grabbed my old grey tattered hat that completed my outfit. I walked out of my room and saw my old comrade waiting for me on the couch having helped himself to a glass of water. "Lets go" he said placing the glass on the table and leading the way towards the exit. After jiggling the door handle to make sure it was locked, my friend held his hand out to take the key from me so that I wouldn't lose it. We both walked in silence with slow strides inching our way closer to the mall. He grabbed the door handle and held it open as I walked through thanking him on the way in. Our eyes were planted on our spot, the two seater table closest to where the giant chess board had been. I sat there reading the newspaper my friend had brought while he unpacked the thermos and sandwiches his wife had packed for us. After we had taken the last few bites of our egg salad sandwiches and drank the remaining sips of our coffee I wiped away the crumbs into my hand and walked over to the garbage followed by my dear friend. And so we began our journey to the chess board where an exciting yet intense game was to be played.

Bowling for Columbine

1.Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine uses wit and humour to reach out to the public. He doesn't just appeal to the viewers by using facts, statistics or the history behind Americans obsession with firearms
instead he uses irony in relevant situations related to the use of firearms in America. His approach to the problem of gun related violence is to entertain the viewers by showing humorous cartoons and asking questions that we as viewers must find the answer to ourselves. Michael Moore gives us the information and leaves us, the viewers, to figure out what we think about the issue of gun related violence in America. He uses visual entertainment to inform us of the history of violence in America. Although it does appear that he has a biased opinion in Bowling for Columbine, there is room for our own thoughts and opinions towards the issues that are discussed in the movie. Michael Moore provides the information about the history of gun related violence in America by terrifying and captivating the audience.

2.Bowling for Columbine is more likely to be considered slanted journalism than a documentary. Michael Moore interviews people and asks for their opinions on gun related violence in America rather than simply stating the facts of the issue. He attempts to manipulate the thoughts and views of certain people like Charleton Heston by showing the damage firearms can do. This film doesn't just go into the lives of the people affected by gun related violence but everyday people are also asked what they think of the issue.

3.Michael Moore's interview with Charleton Heston was unethical journalism because he attemted to manipulate the view that Charleton Heston had on firearm use in America. Instead of just asking Heston how he percieved the issue, Michael Moore tried to push his thoughts on him by tyring to make him feelremorse towards his decisions to speak after the death of a child who was shot by a school mate.

Black widow questions & Fear Paragraph

1. The widow will deliver a series of bites as the creature dies, injecting substances that liquefy the organs.
2. I hunt black widow.

I am afraid of spiders. Their grotesquely long, hairy, rapidly moving legs put the fear in my eyes. The thought of their diminutive little bodies crawling into my mouth while I sleep makes me cringe. I don't see the webs they weave as beautiful works of art but rather as soiled pieces of string that came out of an 8 eyed crawling nightmare. What I hate most about them is how in the blink of an eye they can move from the dark corner where the ceiling meets the wall to your shadow, cast right in front of you. Most spiders are harmless, or so I've heard, but it doesn't matter to me whether they can kill me with their venomous poison or if their intention is to just crawl around my house in search of food and shelter. They are, in my eyes, the worst thing out there.

Perception is everything

Imagine climbing to the top of a mountain and standing at the peak looking out at the view and your friend is with you looking out at the same scene. You look out and see a quiet, peaceful and beautiful world. Birds flying over the still entrancing water, mountainous terrain reflected in the water. Your friend looks out at the exact same view but they see a busy world, cars driving along the highway and people the size of ants moving about, playing outside. Both you and your friend are looking at the same thing but your perception of what you see is different. You may percieve the world as a serene and silent place but your friend sees it as loud and full of life. In Beau Otto's presentation on optical illusions he talks about how what we percieve may not be real. Beau Otto shows examples of his theory by holding up certain colours behind translucent paper and asking the audience what colour they see. Half of the audience will say one colour and the other half will say another. Our eyes have been trained to see colours in a certain way but when we look at colours in a different way, like through an optical illusion, they get confused and use the colour that is most often seen used on that object. So maybe my red isnt the same as your red, maybe what I see as red could be what you see as green. Who's to say which perception is right? Yours or mine? What Beau Otto means by "what we see may not be real" is that the way one person sees something to be isn't necessarily the same as way another person sees something to be. If everyones perception on something is different, then how can we be sure whats real?

Perils of Indifference

1. The danger of equality
2. During the 16th century in Mesoamerica the Aztec would sacrifice one human being every day as a way of helping the sun to rise. No one wondered how a human sacrifice pertained to the the natural phenomenon that is the sun. They just did what they had been doing for years because the Aztec people believed that the sacrifices were the reason the run was rising, and so it became tradition. In the same way that the Aztecs went with their tradition of human sacrifice the townspeople in "The Lottery" would sacrifice one person every year. The townspeople would all draw a piece of folded paper out of a box and the person who received the paper with the black dot would get stoned. In The Lottery no one questioned why a human sacrifice was required, it was simply tradition so everyone went along with it. Objections would only come from those who were to be stoned otherwise there was no questioning what they believed to be "the norm".  Both times practiced human sacrifice as a way of achieving what they wanted, and they believed that it was abnormal to stop doing it since it had been going on for so long.
3.Perils of Indifference and The Lottery both include the bystander affect. In Perils of Indifference by Elie Wiesel he talks about how people just stand by and watch as injustice takes place in the world because they are too lazy to do something about it. Hitlers reign went on for so long that Germany had turned into "Hilter's Germany". Why did it take so long for the Holocaust to end? People weren't willing to rebel against the disaster sooner, it didn't need to take so long for change to occur. In the Lottery the townspeople would gather in the town square and do roll call to make sure no one was left out of this event. When Tessie was pleading for her life no one stood up for her and asked for the stoning to stop, they just wanted to get it over with and continue on with their daily routines. People are lazy in the sense that they believe it is simply easier to be a bystander than to step in and make a difference and speak out against conformity.