"Gone" Book Response

“Gone” Book Response

By Lucas Peterka

Michael Grant’s “Gone” is a loss of innocence story set around a character, Sam, who has had the harshness of the world revealed to him in an apocalyptic situation. Sam is a teenage boy faced with the responsibility of leading his friends against known and unknown enemies. Grant focuses on the courage and maturity that can be found in any child; the courage and maturity that usually goes unnoticed by the rest of society. In the traumatic plot Grant has put before his teenage characters, we find truth in their actions, thoughts, and feelings.
                Even in the beginning of the book, we can see Sam’s courage and maturity start to develop. When the adults disappear, a fire almost instantly starts in a building in the town square. Sam, seeing the danger, takes charge of his peers. Many of the older kids get to the abandoned fire station to retrieve hose while Sam himself dives into the burning building to save a trapped child. With this small little scene, we can see Grant introducing courage, determination, and leadership in these kids. Sam taking charge shows us that inborn leadership. And the kids running to the station to cart that hose over to the building shows us the determination in those kids to save their town. But most importantly was Sam’s courage, jumping into that burning building to save a girl he didn’t even know.

                We can even find this courage and leadership in other characters. Caine, for example, even as the book’s “bad guy” has shown incredible maybe even stupid and frightening amounts of courage and leadership skills. Caine and his followers came down from Coates Academy, a school for “troubled kids”, to Perdido Beach. Soon after Caine enters town, he has practically taken over the entire town, with one speech. Grant uses Caine and this scene to express his idea of maturity and leadership, but being used in a different way. Because Sam obtained his leadership through his courage, he shows us Caine using his maturity and understanding. Caine manipulates the public with this maturity in the same way a politician may do so with ads. With this scene, Grant shows us that with these attributes, children can be both honorable and manipulative.

                With this book, Grant hoped to inspire in the rest of us that certain traits are found in all ages and sizes. And just like in adults, they can be used for, simply put, good and evil. Because maturity, courage, leadership, and determination are in everybody, even the bad ones. These traits give people power and how they use it is up to them. But in “Gone” people not only use this power however they want, it’s the kids who are using it. And to Michael Grant and me it is important that everybody is equal no matter how old they are.

"Can Your Phone Testify Against You?" Argument Essay

Baseline Argument Essay:

“Can Your Phone Testify Against You?”

By Lucas Peterka

                A recent Supreme Court ruling has law enforcement agencies up in arms. “Can Your Phone Testify Against You?” by Patricia Smith, offers both sides of the story. Long before the ruling, people have been wondering about the privacy they deserve and how it connects to law enforcement searching our phones, warrantless. But the Supreme Court’s decision to free David Riley, a man convicted of attempted murder, due to privacy invasion, has people picking sides. Let’s face it though, our entitled privacy has been considered void by certain law enforcement officials, until now. And if you don’t believe me now, you will believe by the end of this piece.

                The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” It requires law enforcement to collect warrants to search a citizen’s personal and private belongings. The question most, though, is whether or not cellphones are classified as “private” belongings.  According to Patricia Smith, Upfront author, “Today, people’s most private information, from bank records to personal correspondence and intimate photos, is all accessible from a device that leaves home when they do.” Most people would consider these examples completely private and immensely personal. With information like this, certain people could ruin your entire livelihood. And with warrantless searches allowed, law enforcement offices would be able to access all of this information, freely without any consequence. Do you want a stranger looking at your bank account? Do you feel okay having your privacy invaded to an enormous degree? Are you okay with losing a Constitutional right?

                Some criticizers of the Supreme Court’s decision say the Framers did not have mobile technology on their minds when writing the Bill of Rights. However, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that “The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought.” Our interpretation of these older documents that set our country’s basic principles must be modified to fit with the modern era we live in. While the Framers may have been thinking of the British soldiers invading the houses of colonists and searching their belongings, that is simply not how the American life works anymore. People’s most important information can be located on their cellphones and the police searching our phones without a warrant, is the equivalent to the British soldiers invading the houses of colonists.

                One main point many criticizers bring up is the protection. Courts have allowed warrantless searches of evidence before, to avoid the destruction of evidence and to protect officers from armed suspects. They wonder why it is not applied to cellphone searches. The Supreme Court, however, said that “Neither justification made sense in the case of cellphones. The possibility that evidence could be destroyed or hidden by ‘remote wiping’ or encryption programs could be addressed by an officer turning off the phone or placing it in a special evidence bag that blocks the signal until a warrant can be obtained.” Cellphones can be treated differently from other types of evidence because it can be so easily protected. It will require a change in all law enforcement offices, yes, but some sacrifices must be made for us to get the privacy we deserve.

               Cellphone privacy has become a hot topic in America. And with the Supreme Court, one of the most recognized groups in the country, taking a stand, more and more people are picking sides. And while some may not agree with the ideas the Supreme Court and I share, they should have consolation that there are always exceptions. The Fourth Amendment allows warrantless searches in emergencies and evidence contained in cellphones can be protected. And with the same technology that is causing the most strife in this issue, cops can acquire warrants in sometimes fifteen minutes via email. Some people might argue against, sometimes with fairly good reasons, but the fact remains the same, the Fourth Amendment extends to the information in our cellphones, and law enforcement has been infringing on our privacy rights for years. But now, the people have reclaimed their rights, and rightfully so. 

"Faithful Elephants" Response

Faithful Elephants Response

Lucas Peterka 804

                Is war bad? In the story Faithful Elephants, by Yukio Tsuchiya, that is the question the author asks us as readers. Tsuchiya’s story is about three elephants and a group of zookeepers in World War Two. The elephants, however, are not really characters. They are used to symbolize hope. And Tsuchiya uses this symbolism to express his answer to the question he asks all his readers. He sees war as force that will eventually kill off all hope, even when we try to save it.

                The author starts to really delve into war affecting what hope we have and what we do when we start to lose it in these couple of lines. “Then, raising their trunks high in the air, they did their banzai trick… The trainer could stand it no longer ‘Oh Tonky! Oh Wanly!’ he wailed, and dashed to the food shed. He carried food and pails of water to them and threw it at their feet. ‘Here!’ he said, sobbing, and clung to their thin legs. ‘Eat your food! Please drink. Drink your water!’” We can see how Tsuchiya is demonstrating war’s effect on hope. The trainer reacts the way he does because he can feel his hope start to slip away. But if Tsuchiya’s claim is correct, the trainer’s attempt at saving his hope, will be for naught.

                In the line “But everyone was hoping that if the elephants could survive only one more day, the war might be over and the elephants would be saved.” we can see an almost direct connection between the elephants and hope. The zookeepers have this hope that the war will end if the elephants can stay alive. But it’s a desperate hope as if they’re losing it because the author says “hoping and praying” as if they’re losing control and grasping at things like God or plain luck. We can see war beginning to take a toll on not just the trainer’s feelings and emotions, but all the other zookeepers too. Tsuchiya is furthering is claim that war ravages hope.

                Tsuchiya ends his short story on a powerful and claim-proving scene. “Still clinging to the elephants, the zookeepers raised their fists to the sky and implored, ‘Stop the war! Stop the war! Stop all wars!’” With the death of the elephants, all hope the war would get better in any way was extinguished. Tsuchiya shows us that even though the zookeepers wanted to and tried to save the elephants and their hope, the war finally brought about their end. Hope turned to anger and powerlessness, the war still destroying their country and the hopes of countless others.

                This story, at first glance, is a short sad story. But when examined further, layers and layers of themes and conflicts are revealed. The most prominent, though, were hope and war and how they connected. Tsuchiya manipulated these themes masterfully to back up his claim; that war will eventually snuff out all hope we have, even when we try to hold onto it. And after reading his story, I have been led to wholeheartedly agree with it.