Reflections on Short Story: Scarlet Ibis

It's time to relax and go reading a short story. This is one of the most tragic short stories I've ever read but however, the plot and story is excellent and the theme is deeply embedded in the story for us to explore. The story starts with Doodle's brother reminiscing about the tragic event that happened when he was a young boy...
Doodle, the brother of the antagonist, is born with physical abnormalities. Nobody expected him to live to the extent that his parents had actually started preparing a small cofin for him. One day, the antagonist notices his brother smiling, and that was how his family found out that Doodle was actually "all there". Prior to that, they actually thought that Doodle was not only unable to move but he could not do anything that a normal baby could. Shortly after, Doodle was able to crawl but backwards, giving rise to the nickname "Doodle" which was derived from the doodlebug. Seeing that his brother could not walk like others, the antagonist decides to train him to walk. It was not purely the intention of the antagonist's to teach Doodle how to walk but it was because of the antagonist's pride and the thought of how shameful it would be to have a brother who could not even perform basic skills like walking that the protagonist decided to teach Doodle how to walk. During Doodle's first birthday, he finally learns to walk and the expectations of the family of Doodle were proven wrong. Doodle proves himself that he could do what a normal baby could do, vanquishing his family's doubt.
A day came when the protagonist takes his brother out for a walk. The protagonist locates the coffin which his parents had stored away as it was currently useless. The protagonist forces his brother to touch the coffin. This causes emotional disturbance in Doodle who refuses to touch it. This incident shows the relationship between the protagonist and his brother: how he bullies Doodle.
One day, the family hears a strange croaking sound while they are eating. They go out to their backyard to investigate and discovers a scarlet ibis, which Doodle's father explains that it was probably blown off-course by a hurricane. The bird dies shortly after, probably because of exhaustion and injury. Despite warnings from Doodle's mom that he'd better not touch that bird, Doodle decides to pick up the bird using a piece of string before burying it. This event foreshadows Doodle's eventual death which will appear in the story later.
During a training session with the protagonist, a storm starts to brew while they were rowing a boat. The antagonist pushes him to his limits but Doodle is not able to take it. Everything is silent after rowing the boat. The protagonist's pride is cracked and Doodle is ashamed of himself. Despite repeated attempts to tell the protagonist that he was exhausted, the protagonist ignores him. It shows how the protagonist indulges in pride at the expense of Doodle's health. Doodle is eventually unable to catch up with his brother and the violent storm starts. The protagonist abandons his brother but when he returns to look for him, he finds Doodle dead, bleeding from his nose and mouth, holding a striking resemblance symbolically to the scarlet ibis which died in their backyard. Both Doodle and the scarlet ibis died during a storm, were stained with blood and endured harsh treatment before their death...
This story's theme was how pride could be a good motivation but ends up disastrous if it was used in a wrong way.
I recommend readers that they read this meaningful short story because of its plot.

The War of Lawsuits among Phone Giants

Apple, creator of the best-selling iPhone, has filed a lawsuit against HTC, maker of the Nexus One smartphone from Google, accusing HTC of infringement of 20 iPhone patents."We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it," Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said in a statement. Google's NexusOne smartphone runs on Google Inc.'s Android operating system, which is becoming a threat against iPhone. I reckon that Apple are suing HTC over their illicit borrowing of their multitouch technology which the iPhone is currently having. In this time and age, touchphones are definitely all around us. How could Apple claim that this multitouch technology belongs to them with regards to the number of companies producing smartphones with this technology? Job's has expressed that competitors should create their own original technology, not steal theirs. The biggest irony of the patent statement is that Apple has never actually created a technology, they have only assembled others work into systems.Even the much applauded Mac OS is just a subset of Unix. Apple has definitely gone overboard on claiming that some patents belong to them. Technology is easily circulated in the Internet age and companies have been filing lawsuits over others for infringement of copyright. I suggest that companies purchase a patent so that they can rightfully claim it as theirs.

Chile Quake and Humanitarian Efforts

While Haiti is still in a state of shock and left to pick up its pieces after its grim earthquake, another one, measuring a magnitude of 8.8 on the Ritcher scale, strikes the Maule region of Chile in South America. Tremors were felt as far as the south of Peru and 53 countries were issued tsunami warnings. A tsunami, about 2.4m high, was recorded in the sea of Valparaíso, Chile. The country has now confirmed the deaths of 723 people. The earthquake was so powerful that it shortened the length of the day by 1.26 microseconds and the earth's axis moved by 3 inches or 2.7 miliarcseconds. Despite the fact that the country had expressed that there was no need for international aid, many countries, including Singapore, responded by sending humanitarian aid. Shortly after the quake, public disorder and looting had started. 4 hours after the quake, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet expressed that Chile did not need international aid yet in spite of the fact that about two million people have been affected by the quake with more than 500,000 houses completely damaged. It was a selfish act as the President did not completely comprehend what her citizens were experiencing and it required just a mere "yes" to allow humanitarian aid to reach all those who were suffering, whether emotionally or physically. Life was fragile for the Chileans and within a matter of seconds, somebody would die. Luckily, humanitarian aid had started arriving the next day.
(This is unrelated to the blog post above but some people have started speculations that the recent earthquakes were caused by a research program funded by the US Air Force, the US Navy, the University of Alaska and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.) For more information, do a Google search.