The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Bibliography



George, Jason. "'Prank' Gets Teen Lesson in Tolerance." Chicago Tribune 23 Oct. 2006.



"ICE official says government won't enter church, Arellano unconvinced." Associated

Press 18 Aug. 2006.



Nickelback. All the Right Reasons. Rec. 4 Oct. 2005. Roadrunner, 2005.



Seether. Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces. Rec. 23 Oct. 2007. Howard Bensen, 2007.



"Sony." Advertisement. Rolling Stones 2 Nov. 2006: 25.



"Southpole Collection." Advertisement. Seventeen Nov. 2008: 19.



Trinty United Church of Christ. About Us. Brochure. Chicago, IL: Author, 2007.



"Wet N Wild." Advertisement. Seventeen Oct. 2008: 89.

America separated from a centuries old kingdom to become a democracy led by the people. America fought its bloodiest war to end slavery and, along with Britain’s navy, patrolled the oceans to make sure overseas slave trading came to a halt. America was the bane of such men as Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo, who threatened the very freedom of the world. America has always been a land of triumphs and miracles ever since a group of distinguished, enlightened men signed the Declaration of Independence. However, in recent decades, advertisements, the entertainment business, and biased politics have corrupted the once beautiful American Dream of hard-earned wealth and equality.

While shopping at Walgreens, Target, or any other commercial establishment, it takes only three minutes to skim through the rack of magazines—most notably ones like Star, Cosmo, and The Enquirer—to find advertisements that promote a negative aspect among young women. In one Star magazine, an obvious amount of airbrushing makes a young woman appear fierce, provocative, and impossibly beautiful, with, “Face it, whoever said beauty is only skin-deep was wrong. Ultimate Minerals Foundation and Silk Finish Highlight & Contour Blush make sure you look and feel confident inside and out” beside her (Wet N Wild). In another Star, the advertisement is more vague, as the main picture is a black woman with a striped shirt standing in the middle of the street, with the phone she’s publicizing shoved in a corner (Southpole Collection). In a Rolling Stone, a Sony computer is cracked open, with a few holograms floating in the air above it with the caption, “More action. More drama. More entertainment. More. In every sense” (Sony). In almost every magazine a person looks at, the book contains adds with the underlying message, “If you buy this thing/look like this, you will be successful”.

Leaving the store, a person only needs to turn the radio on in the car or click the power button on the TV remote at home so the entertainment business can bombard the individual with “ideas” on how to become successful and famous. A Nickelback song, “Rockstar”, best summarizes the idea people acquire from television and other media with the lyrics, “‘Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars / And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars / The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap…” (Nickelback). Another song, “Fake It”, also provides the basic line of thought of those who simply want to gain success with whatever means possible, “Who’s to know if your soul will fade at all? / The one you sold to fool the world / You lost your self-esteem along the way” (Seether). While the two songs have a satirical tone to them, hundreds of other ballads, especially in the rap genre, seriously portray the idea that a person could create a band or become an actor or something else along those lines easily. Besides the music business, the entertainment business is full of TV shows such as America’s Next Top Model, The O.C. and Super Sweet Sixteen give off the idea that if a girl has beauty and a certain kind of attitude, she does not require any brains to thrive.

Flicking through the articles of the newspaper, a person would realize that the equality protected by the government in the American Dream has become that very thing: a dream. In this society, it is a person’s right to “express himself” with a picture like “Piss Christ”, but a teenage boy had to attend a sensitivity training session for tapping a Muslim woman’s scarf. The session itself included watching Muslims play basketball, visiting a mosque, and attending a 9/11 event (George). If John McCain had attended a church that taught white supremacy or had ties to the KKK at all, he would not even have lasted a week as a presidential candidate. Barack Obama, on the other hand, joined a church for twenty years that mandated such things as giving a portion of its donations to black institutions, embracing the Black Value System, having a non-negotiable commitment to Africa (which, ironically, still legalizes slavery), adhering the Black Work Ethic, and disavowing “Middleclassness” (meaning that if something is a “white” activity/pursuit, refuse to do it) (TUCC). Besides a drifting bit of controversy, Obama received little to no criticizing for going to such a church. Whereas many of today’s people had grandparents who legally became citizens, having to overcome such obstacles as language barriers, many foreign trespassers from Mexico believe their status is above the law and have begged President Obama for amnesty. In one instance, a woman named Arellano, who has entered the US illegally twice, made a fake Social Security card, was caught and convicted of using the Social Security card, and failed to attend a deportation hearing, faced a mandatory five year sentence in jail, but continued to have the media praise her as an “activist” (ICE). Those are only a few instances of the bias in American society conjured by the fools and bigots of society.

During One of Shakespeare’s Homicidal Urges…



Like all of Shakespeare’s tragedies, the play ends with a bloodbath of the main characters, excluding Horatio. However, unlike Romeo and Juliet or The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, the characters’ personalities, along with the circumstances, lead to their inevitable ends. Shakespeare displays situational irony at its best as people such as Polonius, Laertes, and Claudius become victims of their own tragic flaws, each suffering a gruesome demise.

Polonius constantly spies on others throughout the story, even his own son. He orders his servant, Reynaldo, to travel to France and spread rumors about the boy while he gathers information. He tells his servant to “…breathe his faults so quaintly / That they may seem the taints of liberty / …A savageness in unreclaimed blood” (37). He also keeps a tight rein of surveillance over his daughter, Ophelia, manipulating her to keep tabs on Hamlet’s insanity. He even draws the king into his game of observation as they hide behind an arras to watch Ophelia and Hamlet converse. Thanks to his endless snooping, he dies by Hamlet’s sword while hiding in Gertrude’s room, mistaken for the very man he works under, Claudius.

Laertes, a rash, yet honorable man, rushes to his fate after he succumbs to his fury and confronts Hamlet in a duel to avenge his father and sister. Attacking the castle with a mob that declares him king, he snaps at Claudius, “That both the worlds I give to negligence, / Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenged / Most thoroughly for my father” (110). Adding to the irony of the plot, his father, while alive, had sought to discredit Laertes during his schooling and now his death propels his son into a new realm of trouble. When Laertes finally engages Hamlet in a sword fight, everything seems to go in his favor until Hamlet’s taunts enrage the obstinate man and they scuffle, switching their blades during the brawl. Laertes falls victim to the trap set by Claudius, poisoned by his own blade after a fit of anger.

Claudius’s karma weaves the most elaborate death in the play, fashioned after his heinous deeds. He devises schemes involving the poisoning of his brother and nephew/stepson, which also inadvertently kill Laertes and Gertrude. Hamlet mocks these actions as he forces Claudius to consume a deadly drink and sneers, “Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, / Drink off this potion. Is thy union here? / Follow my mother” (145). Hamlet accuses Claudius of being an alcoholic earlier in the play, and the king dies imbibing his own poisoned liquor. He has plotted for an unknown period of time to seize the throne from his brother, upon which he meets his end in the final act after losing the woman he loved and stole from his brother.

Claudius, Laertes, and Polonius meet rather significant deaths, struck down by their own flaws and vices. If they had only refrained from their desires and actions, they might have survived. Shakespeare unleashes his appetite for properly constructed carnage in Hamlet, leaving its mark on the literary world for over four centuries.