myths

Cephalus and Procris is a myth about two lovers. Cephalus, was a hunter who enjoyed running in the mornings, and Procris, his beloved wife. One day a wanderer heard Cephalus say something loving to the breeze, and believed him to have a lover. He went and told Procris but she refused to believe unless she witnessed it . She hid behind a bush, and when seh hear the compliment, began sobbing. Surprised, Cephalus tossed his spear, a gift from her which he always carried with him, and killed her. Callisto is a myth that speaks of a nymph who made Juno very jealous and lied whith Jupiter. Because of this, she and her sun were turned to bears and placed among the stars. But Juno was upset about this and talked to the gods of the Oceans, forbidding them to ever let these 2 constellations sink into the sea as all others do. Diana and Actaeonis a myth that narrates how a man once saw the goddesss Diana naked, and she truned him into a stag, causing his own hunting dogs and companions to tear his life out.

RUDY'S GUN SELLOUT
A SORRY PANDER TO THE NRA
By JONAH GOLDBERG

September 27, 2007 -- WHEN Rudy Giuliani spoke to the National Rifle As sociation last week, there was no way he could say anything remotely pleasing to the audience and remain consistent to his record.
The former mayor was one of the NRA's biggest targets in the 1990s, and for good reason: His positions were largely indistinguishable from the Clinton administration's, from which he received lavish praise for helping the feds impose an assault-weapons ban, among other NRA no-nos.

(So Giuliani went the way of many of his rivals by ditching his principles to appease the NRA crowd.) Argument to the people, Bandwagon Approach. It was a full-fledged pander: Giuliani explained that his views have "evolved" since he was mayor. (In presidential politics, "evolution" is usually code for throwing inconvenient baggage off the boat.) Personal, Circumstancial. And, in short order, stevedore Giuliani chucked years of anti-gun rhetoric over the side.

The impetus for his newfound respect for the Second Amendment, Giuliani explained, was the "intervening event" of 9/11, giving new salience to the phrase "9/11 changed everything."
(While one can hardly fault special-interest lobbies for cheering when presidential candidates kowtow to them, that doesn't mean the rest of us have to.) Personal, Circumstancial. Personally, my views are closer to the NRA's than they are to Giuliani's. But still, I was hoping that Rudy would have stuck to his federalist guns a bit more.

Giuliani has run the best campaign of any candidate in either party so far, despite an unfavorable political climate and the fact he lacks the kind of institutional pull Hillary Clinton has within her party. He has managed to take and hold onto an early lead, even with a record so littered with red flags (in conservative eyes) that it looks like one of those choreographed North Korean rallies.

On immigration, he's dodged nearly every bullet that hit Sen. John McCain. In a party allegedly hijacked by Religious Right and family-values fetishists, the thrice-married, pro-civil-unions former Gay Pride Parade marcher has managed to win the hearts of large numbers of social conservatives.

Tonight, I read Thamyris, Marsyas, and Melampus. The first was Thamyris, who in search of competition, lost his eyesight. Then, was Marsyas who again, finding himself wuite talented for the flute, challenged Apollo, and was defeated. Melampuse, on the other hand, spoke of a man who could foretell the future thanks to the help of some serpents that granted him the gift of understanding animals. I find that the first two are rather relevant myths. It is true that we shan't ever uderestimate ourselves or others, but one thing we can't do, absolutely, is overestimate ourselves, for our pride and ambition may lead us to great and rather dreadful consequences.

Last night, I read the myths: Hebe and Ganymede, Roman Divinities, and Penelope. The first one was about Hebe, the goddess of youth, who fell in love with hercules and thus resigned to her possition, and being later replaced by Ganymede. The myth about Roman Divinities is one names and describes some of the gods that were taken from Greek mythology and adapted to that of Roman. This , I believe is the most interesting of the myths I read because Through this work of fantasy, I can find a true likeness with what we lead of our own lives. For example: every human being seems to be goo at something, meaning they posses a certain talent; but at the same time, some humans can be good at the same thing, although there will always be one who stands out as the best. Finally, the myth of Penelope was one that rather caught my attention as well. IT told the story of a woman who stayed forever waiting for her husband, and weaving a cloak that would determine when her wait was done. Yet, she kept undoing what was already done, in order to postpone the finishing of the cloak, thus making her wait forever. Again, this is something that I consider myself to be an expert at. I am always trying to give myself more time to do something and am always thinking of what chance might come i might take. I am always thinking of what I will do tomorrow, or then; but never of what I should be doing today, now...

Op-ed

Taxing the Hand That Feeds Us

By RAMESH PONNURU
Published: September 20, 2007
Washington

REPUBLICAN presidential candidates can’t get elected without owning the tax issue. So far, the current crop is giving it away.
A huge reason for Ronald Reagan’s popularity was his cutting of all income-tax rates and ending of “bracket creep,” in which inflation pushed earners into higher tax groups. Congressional Republicans promised a tax credit for children while sweeping the 1994 elections. In 2000, George W. Bush promised to expand that tax credit and to reduce income taxes.
Yes, the top Republican contenders for 2008 are promising to keep all of Mr. Bush’s tax cuts. But the Democrats are not threatening the child tax credit or Mr. Bush’s reductions in the lower-level income-tax rates. Those issues are off the table.
What Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani — who have made the most detailed remarks on taxes of the top-tier candidates — are really saying is that they will make sure that taxes on capital gains, dividends, estates and high earners will stay low. Not many middle-class taxpayers will benefit directly from any of those policies.
Mr. Romney adds that he will try to cut the corporate tax rate, which his adviser Glenn Hubbard calls “a drain on competitiveness.” Many of our trading partners have cut their corporate taxes, and more and more conservatives want the United States to follow suit. Apparently they haven’t been listening to their own speeches on free trade. Companies compete. Countries, however, are not engaged in a zero-sum contest where one nation’s gain is another’s loss. Cutting corporate tax rates may or may not be a good idea, but we don’t need to make it a priority to preserve our competitiveness.
Both Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani speak vaguely about making sure the alternative minimum tax doesn’t affect any more middle-class families. That is a step in the right direction. But it isn’t a tax cut.
Mr. Romney has also proposed an initiative to make the return on middle-class savings tax-free. It may also be a step in the right direction, but it’s small change. The primary focus of the Romney and Giuliani tax plans remains high earners.
What would be a serious middle-class tax cut? One answer is to expand the tax credit for children. But none of the candidates is proposing to do so, or any other big tax relief for regular folks. You might think that Mr. Giuliani would want to do everything he can to appeal to social conservatives short of actually becoming one himself. But why should he offer a pro-family tax cut when even the hard-core social conservatives in the race aren’t interested? Mike Huckabee wants a national sales tax and Sam Brownback wants a flat tax. Either proposal would increase taxes on a lot of middle-class families.
The Republicans in Congress are no better. For much of the right, the great passion of the moment is to make sure that the carried interest at hedge funds is taxed at what look an awful lot like preferential rates. For years, liberals have said that Republicans talk about “family values” but won’t do anything to meet the economic needs of families. Right now, on taxes, that charge hits home.
Two ideological misconceptions underlie the party’s lack of imagination. First, Republicans worry that taking people off the income-tax rolls, as an expanded child credit would do, would make voters think big government is free and turn to the Democrats. But there’s no real evidence for this. Besides, parents are likely to be future-oriented voters, and they will realize that they will be paying higher taxes again once their children have grown up.
Second, Republicans believe, in general, that the tax code should generate its revenue in a way that does the least damage possible to the economy. So they seek tax reforms that cut taxes on investment returns and thereby increase economic growth. What they ignore is that we overtax investments in children, too. Parents make financial sacrifices to produce the next generation of taxpayers, who will pay for everyone’s retirements. Yet the tax code does too little to recognize parents’ investments.
True, an expanded tax credit for children wouldn’t increase economic growth. Growth is good, and more growth is better. But present tax rates are perfectly compatible with healthy long-term growth. There is no pressing need to bring them down to improve growth.
A few conservative strategists have designed tax reform plans that modestly cut corporate tax rates and simplify the tax code while also helping families. (One idea is to make up the lost revenue by bumping affluent childless people into higher tax brackets.) So far, the candidates have not been interested.
As the Republican Party has gotten more socially conservative, its voter base has become lower in income. Many of the working-class social conservatives on whom the party relies are parents trying to make ends meet, or young people who want to start families but have financial worries. They have no particular attachment, or hostility, to free-market principles. A Republican Party that found a conservative way to meet their economic needs would both hold and expand its base.
Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior editor at National Review.

Tonight I read the myths of Hermes, Eco and Narcisus, and Hades. The one I liked most was that of Hermes. I find it rather true that sometimes we feel that we are too young for something, when in fact it turns out to be the other way around. Our youth, in some cases allows us to overcome certain obstacles that we could not do when older. It also tells me that when younger, your mind is fresher and therefore is able to come up with better ideas. This is why we should never rush into groing up and enjoy the power and vitality of our youth.

Myths

This Thursday and Friday I read about: Ares, Phateon, Athena, I found these myths to be all quite different. Ares and Athena, yet I find quite alike. They were both very fond of war, being brave and incandescent in their strength. Yet it is mentioned that Ares was not a wise warrior. He liked to fight for no particular reason, and so, got himself into quite some trouble. He and Athena met quite sometimes during battle, but The Troyan war was the most important of their encounters. Here Ares was defeated and thus forced to return to Mount Olympus. I found the tale of Phateon to be tragic in pathetic way. He wanted to proof himself of something he was not capable of, and that explains why we so many times overestimate ourselves and end caught up within the thick haze, just like he left the rest of the world to be.

California standards cover more than just fuel economy.
the Supreme Court in April that the Environmental Protection Agency had authority to regulate such emissions “plainly emboldened” Judge Sessions, who “takes the further step of endorsing an actual exercise of such authority by the states.”
Under the California law, the emissions reductions for cars in the 2016 model year could be 30 percent or more below current levels.
Mr. Sharif, a wealthy industrialist, is certainly no hero.
And there is particular irony in his self-promotion as an opponent of military rule, since the military first helped put him in office.

Tonight I read the myths of King Midas, Persefome among the dead, and the Birth of Afrodite. These myths are among themselves parallel and it is sifficult to find a relationshio between them. But I can clearly see the significant relationship between the myth of King Midas and Gilgamesh. They were both very powrful kings, and like King Midas, Gilgamesh was looking and wishing for something that was meant only for the gods. They were both ambicious and in a way egocentric, and both ended up losing something of great importance. In the end though, Gilgamesh retrieves what he has lost while Midas drowns in his own anguish and regret.

More Myths

Three more myths I've read are, Cupid and Psyche, Callisto, and Linus. I believe all these myths to be very different among themselves. Linus is merely a paragraph long, and it narrates nothing but the character's death. On the other hand, I found a closer relationship between the other two myths. They both involve the punishment of a nymph, and in both cases, for love, temptaion and lust. The only connection I can see between these and Gilgamesh is the relationships the characters constlantly share, and how they sometimes seem to end in misery and death.

Connections

The three myths I read were Atalanta, Apollo and Daphne, and Diana and Actaeon. I honestly can’t find a direct relationship between any of these three myths and the epic of Gilgamesh. These three myths all showed the terrifying power of the figure of women. They were all based on men falling in love with them and ending in pain and death. And if you put it this way, in Gilgamesh there was a similar situation though it happened the other way around. The goddess Ishtar, daughter of Anu, falls in love is rejected by Gilgamesh and as a punishment, she sends the bull of heaven to kill him. But once again I see that the power of women is fearful and lethal and its worth fighting against.

In search of Living Death

In these last tablets of our assignment, I see how Gilgamesh wanders into the lands where he seeks the forbidden knowledge, the knowledge of eternal life. I see this as a metaphor, for most of us seek that knowledge desperately, and go too far to reach it. I also see this as an oxymoron, for Gilgamesh goes through the deadliest of passages no mortal has ever ventured into, in search of life. I can also see how they describe the Twin Beings with different adjectives like monster, scorpion and dragon. I think this means that evil can always take a different form depending on how you look at it, some not as foul or vile as others. When Gilgamesh is travelling through the darkness, I believe it is a metaphor used to explain how sometimes we feel disserted, with no one there, in the utter darkness, with no one to count on, but you still have to go on. And just when you feel like you’ll fall, the light comes in.

Together

“Two people, companions, they can prevail” (Gilgamesh, p43)
During these two tablets, Enkidu perishes while in the care of Gilgamesh because it is this that the gods have decided to do. I think it has a deeper symbolic meaning but I don’t see it clearly. My interpretation though is that two people, who stay together as friends, can go against anything, even death. I especially like these tablets because they remind me of what life is really about. If you stay together, then nothing can bring you down.

Forgetting and Foreseeing

In these few tablets, the journey of Enkidu and Gilgamesh is told. During this journey, Gilgamesh once again encounters the strange happenings of his dreams. Gilgamesh asks Enkidu if it was he who woke him, but then he remembers it was because of dream he had. I believe this happens to many of us sometimes. Something unexpected happens and we don’t know who caused it or how to interpret it. And it is then when someone comes along and helps us understand.

Change can be strange

"But seeing him (Enkidu), they fled. The creatures were gone and everything was changed." (Gilgamesh, p8)In this quote I find that there is a reality that can be interpreted in different ways. When someone chooses to give in to temptation, there are some things that will be lost in exchange. This is what I understand by it, but it could also mean that as time goes by and we make decisions, we make changes in our lives and those of others and thus begin living a new and different life.

इन्त्रोदुक्तion

This Blog is basically about the books that we will be reading during this 9th grade Pre AP English course. Here, I shall share my opinions abouth such as well as discuss and compare. It is free to all who wishes to read and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.