John Irving and The Cider House Rules

John Irving was born on March 2, 1942. His fame has increased over the years and his career took off after he wrote his famous novel The World According to Garp. Two of his novels, The Cider House Rules, and A Prayer for Owen Meany have been best sellers and also made into very successful movies. Irving grew up as the son of an Exeter faculty member. It is believed that his father, Colin F.N. Irving, and uncle H. Hamiltion “Hammy” Bissel are portrayed through characters in many of his novels. The Cider House Rules movie won a 1999 Academy award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Irving began writing when he was twenty six years old and published his first book, Setting Free the Bears. The novel got fair reviews, but didn’t gain the popularity he had hoped for. John Irving published The Cider House Rules in 1985. The book is focused around abortion and many have paralleled it to Oliver Twist. The story is set in rural Maine in the first half of the century. Dr. Wilbur Larch is the founder and director of an orphanage in the town of St. Clouds. The story is about the doctor and his favorite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted. Dr. Larch performs abortions secretly due to all the back-alley abortions of the time, and upon learning his secret, Homer expresses his discomfort and disapproval of the doctor’s actions. Homer then meets Candy Kendall, and they have a child named Angel. Angel then meets a girl and they get pregnant. Homer performs the abortion, and goes back to the orphanage to take Dr. Larch’s place. This book is going to be very interesting to read and I’m looking forward to learning the history behind the time period of the book and more on John Irving’s life.

http://john-irving.com/The_Cider_House_Rules.asp

MHS Needs a Snow Day

The weather reporters are calling for four to five inches of snow between now and 11 in the morning tomorrow. It’s one of those nights where all of the teenagers of Mariemont High School are desperately wishing for a snow day. So just give us one already! It’s exam week, and all of the students are cramming in preparation. As if that’s not bad enough, the seniors are absolutely swamped with work… (Thanks, Mr. Becksfort.) Not only do we have to worry about our final this week, but we are also loaded down with SRP modules, which, don’t let the name deceive you…they aren’t fun. At all. It would be so tremendous if we could have a day tomorrow to prepare just a little more for this miserable week. We would come back on Tuesday ten times stronger and ready to dominate on finals. Not to mention, an extra day off would give those hooligans who have yet to give senior items into the prized Editor-in-Chief of the yearbook, Katherine A. Weiner (ever heard of her? I heard she is an extremely dedicated staff member and never complains)…even though the deadline was DECEMBER THIRD. Nine days ago. Deadline, shmeadline...right? As I said before, hooligans. Regardless of this mindless rant that is a blog, one statement holds true: we desperately need a snow day. I say this speaking as a student whose backpack may or may not still be in her car from Friday when she left school. I’ll leave that up for debate.

http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Cincinnati+OH+45227

Lowering the Drinking Age to 18

Binge drinking is defined as:  the modern definition of drinking alcoholic beverages with the primary intention of becoming intoxicated by heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time.  It is a growing epidemic, especially in the United States. The legal drinking age has not always been 21, and was raised in the 70’s. The issue with the raised drinking age is that it has given drinking the contraband status, making the younger generations wanting to drink…and in excess. There are stats showing that in other countries such as Europe where the drinking age is nonexistent, there are far less issues with binge drinking. When something is permitted, it is highly less desirable to do. It does not really seem fair that at the age of eighteen, one can legally vote, smoke and buy tobacco products, get married, and enlist in the army, but cannot have a beer. If these people are granted all these rights as “adults”, it does not make sense to restrict them from legally drinking alcohol. Binge drinking would not be nearly as big of an issue as it is today if the legal age were just lowered back down to eighteen. There were of course issues back when the legal drinking age was lower, but they weren’t quite as extreme as the issues the younger generations face today. If the contraband status of drinking were eliminated, it would not be nearly as attractive and desirable, causing less and less people to be facing the dangerous consequences due to excessive drinking. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20249460/ns/health-addictions/