Ideas never die.

Yesterday Nina began working on paragraphs, or sections, to be included in the first draft of the essay. There's a lot of ideas, but some more sources are needed to back them up.
The annotated bibliography is also in progrees. Slightly.
Looking into some definitions, and expanding knowledge of the more basic terms associated with our arguments looks like the best place to start.
Nina decided to hit the books; onto the library website to order some books referring fascism, and a copy of Yerlte the Turtle, of course. She also intends to look up the turtle in her symbols dictionary tonight- why didn't she think of that sooner?
A website listing publications availible about people who experienced torture because of their opposition to fascism offered horror stories, of young deaths and abused people. Nina jumped when she thought she saw the word Turtle. It said Tutto, ad was the last word in the phrase: Che è Oggi il Popolo Italiano? Niente. Che Cosa Deve Essere? Tutto.
Translation: (This came from babel fish, so ignore the grammatical errors.) What is Today Italian Popolo? Nothing. What Must Be? All.
Another surprise, though Nina should have realised it. An idea cannot die, and fascism certainly did not. Nina found articles dating as recently as October, 2009, protesting fascism in the Southeast. They call them Nazi's.

They say that history is written by the victors.
We can beat a nation.
Not an ideal.

Cartoons on the brain

On the topic of the political cartoon:

Maddie did some research, as Nina mentioned, on animals that kill or banish the weak members of their species. No animal in particular seemed to match the specific description, but Maddie found that spiders will eat anything caught in their webs, including other spiders. This sparked Maddie's idea for a smaller spider caught in a web, surrounded by others of his kind. The small spider represents Mack, the opposition to Yertle, as well a the opposition towards Hitler's fascist nation.

Nina's idea of a hive of faceless worker bees being, in a way, brainwashed by their queen is a solid one.

Erik had the idea of a turtle burping in Hitler's face. Sometimes we idolize and worship him. <- Uhmmm Erik? Maddie wrote "sometimes we wonder about him." We worship. We idolize. In the extreme. Now Nina is correcting this blog post! (Her statement may or may not have been edited)

Mr. Blauer suggested a twist on the stack of turtles from the book. A stack of people, holding Hitler at the top. Each person in the stack represents some sort of freedom or idea that fascist nations such as Hitler's regime stand against. Maddie has so far created a sketch for this idea.

-Maddie Stephens
Edited by Erik McGowan
RE-EDITED BY NINA DANIELLE
Re-reedited by Erik

Queen Bees

Today, having lost access to the school network and internet services, the group had a good old fashioned meeting, involving a pen and paper, focused discussion between Nina and Maddie, and Erik clicking who-knows-what on his laptop. That said, his input was valuable.
The group discussed their research. Maddie has been looking at an assortment of political cartoons. Nina and Erik have been examining the metaphors and symbols within the book; Nina having followed the symbolism of turtles, Erik researching fascist societies.
Further discussion brought the group to some conclusions about the story.
-The pond is the original land where a fascist society in created.
-Yertle is Hitler. (In case you missed that part.)
-Mack, a turtle on the ver bottom of the tower, represents opposition. Any opposition in a fascist society is annihilated.
-Yertle orders more turtles to join the stack each time, as Hitler continued to raise his requirements.
-That the turtles stand on each other's backs in linked to the legend of a turtle holding the world on it's back. That's a lot of power.
-The other turtles in the story, excluding Yertle and Mack, are the Nazis, in that they accept orders, obeying Yertle, and express no views or opinions of their own. Their passivism represents their alignment to Yertle's beliefs, and possible alignment or willingness to be a part of his cause.

Our proposed thesis statement and essay topics include prooving how Dr.Seuss's Yertle the Turtle uses symbols and characters as metaphors to represent the mechanics of a fascist society.
This statement is subject to change.

On a funner topic;
the political cartoon.
We discussed possibly using bees, because they are all the same, working to build an orderly society.
Maddie intends to research other animals with similar routines to that of the bee in attempts to find a species that kills or banishes those who are born weak or with genetic mutations that the main ensemble finds undesirable.
And of course, there is the Queen bee; as in Hitler's fascist society, that demanded that people abandon personal beliefs and values in order to function as a country rather than an individual- someone is always in charge.

-Nina Danielle
Edited by Erik McGowan

Seeing doubles

Time to start think about the editorial cartoon. Symbols can easily be incorporated, but what message will we be attempting to depict through their usage? Dr. Seuss procliams Yertle (and Hitler) as facist dictators.
So let's look at fascism. Meriam-Webster dictionary describes it as;
1.: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control Fascism means that you don't have you own ideas; there are no individuals, there is one. Nazi's were told not to form cliques, or groups of friends among themselves. They belonged only to Germany, and were to keep the same ideals and values, the same goals.
They were all alike.
Turtles pretty much look alike...
Though that wasn't a key point for Yertle the Turtle,
Could it be ours?

-Nina Danielle
Edited by Erik McGowan

One Bad Song...

January 9th

Maddie has just discovered a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers called Yertle the Turtle. This song is really just the first half of the story set to 'music', a term Maddie is going to use lightly. Erik, however, might enjoy it. It seems unlikely that the Red Hot Chili Peppers actually finished the book because the song doesn't tell the end of King Yertle's adventure.
Maddie does not approve of the song, but enjoys the fact that the song exists at all.

-Maddie Stephens

The Story of King Yertle

January 9th

Maddie would just like to give a bit of background on the story of Yertle the Turtle for those who are not familiar with Dr. Seuss's tale.

Yertle the Turtle is king of the pond. He sits on his stone, his throne, and rules over the turtles and the pond. But Yertle is the king of all he can see. "But I don't see enough! That's the trouble with me!" So Yertle calls to his subjects and orders a tower of turtles to be built for him so he can see further and expand his kingdom. As he is delighted by his gorwing power over the surrounding area, he insists that more turtles be stacked to create an even larger throne, despite the protest from Mack, a turtle stuck at the bottom of the pile. Yertle ignores the plea of the tired turtle and commands the participation of every single turtle in his quest to become higher than the moon. But as Yertle is about to give the order, Mack lets out a mighty burp that shakes the tower and sends the turtle king into the mud, which becomes the only thing he can see and so the only thing he may rule over.

"And the turtles, of course, all the turtles were free
as turtles and maybe all creatures should be"

-Maddie Stephens

Holding up Yertle

The blog is up! Previous posts were filled in, and Nina had fun pressing every button she could find, uploading something into everything, and deleting again! Now to work;
"Western pond turtles" are described as being a reason to wake early in the morning and are said to be like sculpters sitting on a rock in the pond. Yertle lived in a pond. Originally, he sat on a rock. He looked pretty grumpy though, not exactly a peaceful soul early in the morning.
Continuing research on the symbolism of the turtle, more and more results emerged involving the turtle holding up the world.
Native Americans say that the Wood Turtle carries the earth on it's back. In a Hindu legend, four elephants hold up the world, and these elephants stand on a turtle's back. In some religions there are connections drawn between turtles and god. Like Yertle? Trying to get higher, rule the world? Like God? No... Like Hitler.

-Nina Danielle

Why Did He Lose The Moustache?

Jan. 6th

Yertle = Hitler. Or any other dictator, for that matter.

Dr. Seuss's writing was for all people, even though it is normally thought of as reserved for children. We can see this in the mature models and morals in all of his stories. Seuss tackles racism and ethnic hatred, political squabbles, and other hard-hitting topics on the regular. It is hard, when one looks closely enough, to find a story that does not have a deeper meaning than what was once originally interpreted. Erik sought inspiration from the novel, leafing through it repeatedly to find information. Concept understood, Erik set his mind to work, although seemingly his hands sat idle.

Jan. 7th

Why did he lose the moustache?

Yertle the Turtle was originally portrayed with a Hitler-esque moustache, but this was later removed, but why? Erik sought the answer to this question. He found it. According to Seuss, "Yertle had a moustache, but I took it off. I thought it was gilding the lily a bit." Not much time left in class, Erik put his mind on idle and let the ideas flow.

Jan. 8th

Powered up and ready to go.

Ideas must be recorded. Today, Erik brought in his laptop to record the information in the form of the blog that you are reading now. Erik, while unable to access said laptop, watched the music video for Sequoia Throne by Protest The Hero on his iPod, drawing other connections to the iconic moustache. Back in the driver's seat, Erik looked up information on Germany's facist government, World War II, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, and other "relevant" information.

-Erik McGowan

If the world were flat...

January 6th.
The project began by selecting a Dr. Seuss story, which will be analyzed throughly. The group decided on Yurtle the Turtle, already familiar with the lead characters relation to Adolf Hitler. Having never heard the story before today, Nina found it extremely odd to read a Dr. Seuss story, now aware that they key role was occupied by a metaphor to Hitler. Luckily, Maddie's fabulous expression while reading kept it lively and entertaining.
This is quite a twist on her belief of Dr. Seuss growing up; a man who wrote silly words in funny stories to entertain children. Or at least, that was Nina's previous perception of the author.

January 7th.
Today the research began. Nina began looking at the symbolism of a turtle, the animal used to potray the Hitler-like character in the story. She found a reference to ancient myths which described the world as resting on a turtle's back.
In a cartoon shown by teacher's while they teacher student's that the world is round, this myth is revisited breifly. A flat version of planet earth lies across a turtle's back, and a canoe is shown falling off the edge while the turtle watches.
In regards to the story Yurtle the Turtle, this ancient myth is quite fitting. Yertle builds himself a throne out of turtles, stack up by standing on each other's backs. His goal is to expand his own world, because he thinks that everything that he can see belongs to him. This sight relies now only on one turtle's back, but many, many turtles. Yertle builds a world on turtle's back, and, like the canoe in the cartoon, venturing to far results in falling.
The same website stated that "the turtle is always at home with himself." This is a vast contradiction to Yertle, who allows his home to be external, and is therefore unsatisfied.

-Nina Danielle