Sound of thunder…

Instead of taking a quiz over the end of Anthem, I’d like you to write the following 300-400 word blog post/essay quiz:

Compare and contrast the dystopian worlds of Anthem and Fahrenheit 451, especially in looking at the endings, the qualities of the protagonists, the ways in which the societies treat their members cruelly, and the problems that the authors seem to be warning us to be afraid of.

What would Ayn Rand do?

Then, we’ll look at four situations and imagine What Would Rand do? I’ll give you time to discuss in small groups and then we’ll discuss as a full group.

* Politicians debated today on what to do about health care in the United States. Should the US guarantee health care for everyone or should people be forced to buy health insurance with some subsidies from the government? Or should the government do nothing?
* At the UN today, 125 countries agreed on compulsory controls on greenhouse gasses that would attempt to prevent catastrophic Global Warming.
* In the Vatican today, the Pope suggested that more people need to treat their fellow man with respect and to do more for the unfortunate. He also said that governments should provide the poor with housing and jobs to better their lives.
* The Eurpoean courts today fined Microsoft $800 million dollars for improper use of the Windows Operating System as a monopoly. They cited the Redmond-based company for anti-trust violations and have ruled that the company must issue its Internet Explorer browser without a bundled Media Player.

Also, I’d like us to look at the following quotes from Ayn Rand and see what we think about them.

1. Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns–or dollars. Take your choice–there is no other.
2. Guilt is a rope that wears thin.
3. The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.

See a short sci-fi story…“A Sound of Thunder”

See part of Hitchcock documentary about suspense…What do you need to do to make someone scared?

Elements of Sci-Fi for your story…Brainstorm time…Compare…write-me-some-sci.doc