The Stranger: Newspaper Article

Beach Murder Solved; Killer Sentenced to Death

    By Jake Licata          04/10/2020    

     Recent developments have occurred in the case of the recent beach murder. Meursault, the attacker, was determined to be guilty by a court, and sentenced to death. He decided not to appeal the ruling, making his sentence final. This case turned out to be a relatively strange one, and now that it is wrapped up, we can take a look at it events together.

The Motive:

    Every crime has a motive, and despite Meursault not having a huge one, it was still there. It is clear now that this murder was some sort of revenge. Meursault’s friend (Raymond) who he was staying with seemed to have had some sort of prior disagreement with a group of Arab men. Raymond allegedly beat one of their sisters. The Arab men, unless it was a huge coincidence (which many doubt), were following Raymond. A confrontation occurred on the beach, but no serious injuries were sustained except for a large slash on Raymond’s face. Meursault decided to return to the spot where the Arab was resting, and this is where he shot the Arab several times. Looking at the events leading up to the killing, it is clear there wasn’t much reason for Meursault to kill the Arab. The confrontation was over, Meursault had no personal conflicts with the Arabs, and the problem seemed to be over. This leads to one of the biggest questions of why exactly did Meursault kill the Arab. This is one of the biggest reasons he is arrested. He is deemed to be uncaring and almost a psychopath.

The Sentence:

     Despite the clear evidence of Meursault’s guilt in the killing the sentence takes a different approach. The prosecutors seem to focus more of Meursault’s character than the events. Throughout the story there is much evidence that Meursault lacks many social skills. At his mother’s funeral for instance, the prosecutors state, “Gentlemen of the jury, the day after his mother's death, this man was out swimming, starting up a dubious liaison, and going to the movies, a comedy, for laughs. I have nothing further to say” (94). The main point is that Meursault lacks emotions that would make him a safe person in the world. Their first point is that he doesn’t feel anything, and by sending her off to a home, and then not crying at her funeral, he must by crazy. The prosecutors then bring up the point, "Has he so much as expressed any remorse? Never, gentlemen. Not once during the preliminary hearings did this man show emotion over his heinous offense” (105). They are right about this too. Meursault even admits, “ I have never been able really to regret anything in all my life" (127). The fact that Meursault doesn’t feel anything is what gets him killed. The people of the world can’t understand this, and since he is different then them, he must be killed. It seems as if the crime isn’t even the focus of the trial.

     Overall, looking back on this case, it appears as if we can maybe learn something from Meursault. It can be summed up by one of my favorite quotes by him, “It was then that I realized that you could either shoot or not shoot” (56). In Meursault’s mind, nothing really matters. He didn’t need to shoot the Arab, but he did and it doesn’t matter. For Meursault, everything just happens, and he doesn’t think we need to care too much about things. For us “normal people”, we may not ant to take it to that extreme, but maybe every once in a while, we can not worry about the consequences. Want to where that shirt you think may be a fashion-risk? Do it! Want to go on that vacation you’ve always hesitated to book? Do it! Meursault shows us that sometimes things don’t matter as much as we think. He also shows us that maybe everyone does have something to teach us.

The Stranger: Microblog #1 (#2 for fiction)

After reading the book The Stranger, by Albert Camus, it was clear that the main character Meursault is a psychopath. According to Forbes.com, there are 5 obvious signs all psychopaths display. After a brief analysis of Meurasult, I have discovered that sure enough, he meets all of the requirements. Here are 3 of the biggest signs of a psychopath and how he meets them.

1. They're charming people

Throughout the book Meursault is a relatively normal person. He is friends with some people in his building and they clearly like him, inviting him over for dinners, etc. He also has a girlfriend. All of these things help prove that although a psychopath, he it is not immediately obvious and still has charm.

2. They Lack Empathy

This is one of the major points of the book, and the fact that Meursault has not feeling for others is one of the key points that gets him convicted. From not crying over the death of his mother, to the killing of another man and even that beating of his friends girlfriend, Meursault shows no empathy for these peoples' pain.  For example the author says, "The woman was screaming and Raymond still knocking her about. Marie said, wasn't it horrible! I didn't answer anything. Then she asked me to go and fetch a policeman, but I told her I didn't like policemen" (45). Meursault clearly shows now empathy for the girl who is getting abused, and while Marie has a natural reaction, Meursault has none.

3. The Have a Grandiose Sense of Self

Meursault clearly doesn't think rules apply to him, and this is one of the biggest points of the book. After having no real reason to kill the Arab, he shoots him several times. On top of Meursault feeling no emotion and not really caring about the dead man, he also feels that he didn't really do anything wrong. When considering his regret of the killing, Meursault says, "I have never been able really to regret anything in all my life" (127). Even after committing one of the worst crimes known to man, Meursault doesn't have an ounce of realization that what he did was wrong, and this point helps the lawyers, and the reader understand that he is most defenatly a psychopath.

The Little Prince: Cover Re-Design

Explanation:

            On the original cover of The Little Prince, I feel that the author fails to capture much of what the book is about, and thought it could use a makeover. In my new cover, I attempted to incorporate more of the themes and symbols of the book, giving a better representation of the story.

            On my cover I include one of my favorite themes of the book, “Anything essential is invisible to the eyes” (63). When the Prince came down to earth and saw a garden full of roses identical to his, he felt upset by the fact that his wasn’t unique. He then came across a fox who taught him what it meant to be tamed. The fox showed him that it wasn’t about how beautiful or magnificent something is, its about the time you spend with it and put into it. This time creates a connection that can’t be seen. This reassured the prince and caused him to realize that all the other roses weren’t like his flower. He had spent days watering, protecting and talking to his flower. This love he had for it made it one hundred times more special than any other flower. My cover depicts the Little Prince standing in a field of flowers, but staring up at the one on his planet. It symbolizes the love and invisible connection he has with his flower although it is the same as all others.

            My cover also has some minor symbols that tie into the story. One for example is the four thorns on the Little Prince’s flower. These thorns stand as a symbol of childlike naivety in the book. The flower, “alluding to her four thorns, remarked to the little prince, ‘I’m ready for tigers, with all their claws!’ ” (23). This false sense of strength is a common trait in children, and despite the roses confidence, even a smaller animal such as a rabbit would devour her. This false sense of security can also be seen as a defense mechanism to counteract the roses low self-esteem. This is a trait more found in adults known as an inferiority complex. These two traits, which come from people of different maturity levels, help to represent one of the major themes of the book in the conflict between children and adults.

            My covers overall mood conveys a sense of longing in the Little Prince in which he wants to go back home. This is due to the fact that the Little Prince loves his planet and is responsible for it. He says, “You know…my flower… I’m responsible for her and she’s so weak” (80). This responsibility and love the Little Prince has for his planet draws him back. It also causes his to like looking at the sky. He explains to the pilot, “you, though, you’ll have stars like nobody else” (77). As the Little Prince plans to leave, the Pilot is saddened, but the Little Prince explains that he’ll be up with the stars, and that whenever the pilot is feeling down, just looking at the stars, knowing the Prince is up there will cheer him up. This is similar to how the Little Prince feels, knowing his home, and his beloved flower wait for him to return home while he is so far away.

            Overall in my new cover I look to convey a better sense of what the story is about. I try to include themes of love as well as symbols that, when the reader finishes with the book, they can look at and be reminded of their importance.

The Little Prince: MicroBlog #1

     When I first picked up "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, I was confused. I had heard about it being a classic novel, and figured it would be a book for adults. When seeing its short length and pages filled with pictures I couldn't help thinking of it as a glorified picture book. As I stated reading it, I still was faced with this confusion. Its plot seemed to be something out of a fairy tale. Looking deeper though, I realized this was the intention of the author.
     Much of the plot of the story revolves around the differences between adults and children. The two main characters both share similar child-like traits. The Prince is a true child though, and looks to teach the narrator to bring out his child-like traits that he has left behind. he does this by encouraging the narrator to draw pictures and teaching him other little lessons. In this way, the book takes on traits of a picture book.
    The story also encompasses many aspects of an adult novel. It holds deep themes that critique adults. It talks about wealth, power, drugs and other aspects of adult life that are confusing to kids. The Little Prince above all else sees love as the most important thing in the universe and doesn't understand why people occupy themselves with other "serious" tasks.
     The Little Prince could be read by both children and adults, but what they would get out of it is different. I my eyes, Saint-Exupery seeks to write a story from a child's perspective to adults, hoping to help them to better themselves. He hopes that by writing it in this way, they can remember what it was like to be a child, and what is really important in life.
     Now that I finished the story, I'm still unsure of whether I would describe this story as a child's story or a book for adults. It think that was the intention of the story, and either way I agree that it is a classic and that anyone can get something out of it.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry: Infographic

Putting the Cosmos into Perspective: Infographic Explanation

              For my infographic, I decided to try to represent the idea of how large the cosmos is. This is one of the major themes of the book, and toward the end, Tyson attempts to describe our place in the cosmos. One of his main points is about humans’ idea of importance. When he talks about a professor that had reached out to him describing how intimidating the cosmos is, he said, “his ego was unjustifiably big to begin with, inflated by the delusions of significance and fed by cultural assumptions that human beings are more important than everything else in the universe” (199). While it may seem like a shot at the professor, Tyson is making a statement about the human race. Many people think the world revolves around them, and many wars are fought thinking that they are important. Tyson seeks to show that in the scale of the universe, nothing really matters. This is both scary and assuring to some people. My infographic seeks to organize some ideas of how big the cosmos is into a quick visual.

            Since throughout the book he describes the cosmos as being about both space and time, I decided to include scales of both of these measurements. For the calendar, I decided to portray the idea of the cosmic calendar. This was a calendar created by scientists who wanted to better represent when certain events occurred and how long they were. When talking about history, we usually discuss human history which deals in thousands of years. When talking about the history of the universe, we deal with billions, and when Tyson says, “everyone of our body’s atoms is traceable to the big bang and to the thermonuclear furnaces with high-mass stars that exploded more than five billion years ago” (Tyson 33), it is pretty hard to imagine how long ago this is. Thousands of years is barrable, but a billion years is a lot longer than we think. So all the events in the history of the universe were put into scale on a calendar in which the big bang is the start of New Years Day, and the present is the moment the clock strikes twelve on New Years Eve. Even this model doesn’t do complete justice, since we have no idea what came before the big bang, but this gives us the best idea. I picked out what I see as the major events in the universe. I then picked out a few important events in human history. This helps show people that although we think the universe started with us, we are brand new. This helps to show people that there is so much stuff that could’ve come before us. There could be civilizations that have been around millions of more years than us. Just think about how much more advanced they could be.

            For the cosmic ruler, and wanted to give a little look at how spread out our universe is. I first gave some basic measurement such as how far the moon and sun are. They seem very far, but in the scale of things are extremely close. While it only takes light several minutes to travels from the sun to earth, the closest other star’s light takes 4.3 years. That’s a very long distance, but what’s even crazier is that, “our pair of nearest-neighbor galaxies, 180,000 light years distant” (Tyson 63). This not only means it is so far away it can’t even be imagined, but also that what we see from that galaxy is 180,000 years in the past. Tyson expands on this idea in his book, “Light takes time to reach Earth’s observatories from the depths of space, and so you see objects and phenomena not as they are but as they once were” (Tyson 202). So what’s happening from this closest galaxy won’t even reach us for another 180,000 years. On top of this, that is the closest galaxy, but estimates show that the universe holds anywhere from 200 billion to a couple trillion galaxies. Think about all that space in between us an some of the farthest galaxies. And to add even more to this, a lot of galaxies are moving away from us at the speed of light due to the ever-expanding universe. So one day, a couple trillion years in the future, the universe may be so spread out that there may be no galaxies for humans to observe from earth.

            For the last section of the graphic, I included a cosmic scale. This shows how big some of the objects in the universe are. First I show how big earth is, and although we think the moon is big, 50 can fit inside of earth. Then I show how small the earth is, and how over a million can fit inside the sun. It’s crazy to think how many earths that is, and it is almost impossible to imagine. Then I show that although this makes the sun seem huge, billions can fit inside of the largest known star. And there are even bigger things out there, such as the size of galaxies and black holes. Although it is almost impossible, just thinking about how big some of these things are put our place in the universe into perspective. For us, looking up at mount Everest, the biggest thing on earth, it seems to be the biggest thing of all time. But if the earth were the size of a cue ball, we couldn’t even be able to feel it, and earth would actually be almost as smooth as a cue ball.

            Overall, my infographic seeks to represent the major theme of the book using lots of cool info from the book. Although it still doesn’t do the universe justice, it helps give an idea of just how big our home is. It also leaves the question of, what else is out there if it is really this big? Is our universe it, or are there an infinite number of them (try imagining that)? My infographic seeks to continue the discussion of the universe that Tyson loves.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry: MicroBlog 2

Reading this book has proven to be challenging for me, but through further research of some of the topics discussed, I have been able to better understand the text. For example, while reading I learned a bit about how gravity effects different things, and further researched the phenomena gravitational lensing. 

Gravitational Lensing:
In the book, Tyson continually talks about how gravity effects matter in the universe. He delves into Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and how gravity effects bigger things in space. Specifically he talks about how it effects light. He explains how since light is effected by gravity, it can alter our perceptions of things in the universe. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though, because it can also help us to see things in the universe we otherwise couldn't see. This is an effect called gravitational lensing. It is when light travels between two galaxies, and the light is altered in a way that magnifies it. Basically the galaxies' gravity creates a lens, and when light passes through the wave are intensified. This idea was really cool to me, and a little bit of outside research helped me to better understand it. It helps astronomers to see galaxies that we wouldn't be able to. It also can give us many different images of the same event (such as a supernova) because the lens causing the light wave to disperse and go in different directions.
In the picture, the circle to the right is earth, and the light waves are coming from the right. As they pass through the galaxy cluster, they are distorted, and the gravity of the cluster is what creates the lens.

     This is just one of the examples of ideas from the book that has led to further research. While reading this nonfiction book, I have discovered that by stop to look stuff up and taking my time reading, I can really get more out of it and enjoy it more.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry: Preface

            The universe. An ever-expanding space filled with a hundred billion galaxies, most of which are significantly larger than our own. A place filled with everything there is and everything there ever was. A place that holds so many questions, it can make even the smartest people on earth feel ignorant. For example, how did the vast amount of energy and matter in the universe originate from a point only a trillionth the size of this period . ?  Or, what is dark matter, the invisible stuff that makes up 85% of the mass in the universe? And is there anything out there, in the deep reaches of space, that may resemble life on earth?

            Questions like these naturally intrigue us all, and works of science fiction provide us with awesome explanation to these questions. Sadly, many of these works do not accurately depict our universe, although I also wish I could travel through hyperspace one day. The real science behind space can be just as intriguing though (and I’m not only saying that because its my job). For example phenomena such as time dilation, which due to the relativeness of time, would allow us to slow time down. Or the collisions of galaxies, that give us a look at some of the coolest crashes and biggest explosions of all time.

With its unmeasurable size and infinite number of unanswered questions, the universe can often make us feel insignificant in the scheme of things. To really let it sink in, we can take a look at the cosmic calendar. If we put the history of the universe into scale on a calendar, with the big bang on 12:00 AM January 1^st, and the present at 11:59 PM, December 31^st, humans have only been around for 8 minutes. While we may feel that all of history started with humans, that is simply not the case. We are new arrivals to the universe, and if we could accomplish all of this in 8 minutes, imagine what has been accomplished elsewhere in hours, days, weeks or even months. Regardless of how intimidating it may be, the universe is our home, and through the work of astrophysics and other branches of scientist, we seek to better understand it every day.

            In this short novel, I hope to do my best to answer some of these questions for you. In no way will I be able to describe everything about the universe. It would take thousands upon thousands of these novels to even really get started. And in no way are you going to completely understand all the information contained in this book. That is alright though. Even the brightest minds on the planet struggle to wrap their minds around some of this information. My only wish is that you pick up some knowledge that you can carry with you. Some knowledge that will make you want to talk about the universe, and enlighten others. Creating dialogue about space is one of the best ways to answer its question. And even if this knowledge doesn’t inspire you to become the next great astrophysicist, I hope that it can make the universe feel a little less mysterious. So, when you look up into the night sky, at all the different worlds littering the black canvas of space, you can feel a little more at home.