I didn't know anything about the elections in Iran before yesterday. The only thing I really knew was that #iranelection and #cnnfail were trending topics on Twitter. I checked out the #cnnfail page, but it was about the Iran election, which I knew nothing about, so I left it alone. Then I saw this video on Youtube: Iran Election Fraud: 5 Reasons to Doubt the Results
I decided to check out the links provided in the sidebar of this video, and was taken to a list of people in Iran twittering about exactly what was going on as they saw it. I was reading people's firsthand accounts of a revolution of sorts; their excitement for the upcoming elections, their outrage as their candidate lost in a "landslide" win, their decision to finally do something about it. Since then, I have been hooked on the issue.
I soon figured out what the tag #cnnfail was in reference to. People were shocked that CNN (and really all of the other major news sources in the US) weren't giving Iran the coverage it deserved. I decided I wanted to see if I could find it anywhere on television myself. I know the BBC usually gives the best news, but that wasn't on my DirectTV channel list, so I looked at BBC America. It had some random TV show. Then, I checked MSNBC, the channel I like to go to for my news. They were running a show about the stock market for the next two hours. I checked CNN, and finally found something, but I suspect only because of the Twitter #cnnfail fiasco. (My suspect was right, it seems...Rick Sanchez did a segment on how people were saying CNN's coverage was bad, and went through the weekend posting bits they had used to prove they had covered it.)
Twitter has become the outlet for the people of Iran to let the rest of the world know what is going on, and for the rest of the world to find out what is going on. Essentially, it is the website of this revolution. I have been so amazed at the support coming from all corners of the globe. There are people in other countries trying to find ways to help Iranians get around the internet blocks the Iranian government has put into place, people "going green for Iran" with their profile pictures, retweeting things said by Iranian people (using "from Iran" instead of usernames to protect identities), changing their time zones and locations in an attempt to keep the Iranian tweeters safe from the government finding them, and simply offering words of support and encouragement. Twitter itself even postponed site maintenance so that the site wouldn't be down during the daytime in Iran. I tweeted this earlier, and I really mean it: It is truly amazing to see so many people from so many backgrounds come together through the internet to help one another.
It gives me hope for humanity, my generation, and the future of the world, to see so many people around the world supporting the people of Iran. What they are doing is truly inspiring. And it will pay off. America was the result of a revolution, after all. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Well, the oppressed are demanding...it's only a matter of time.
As I write this, it is 4:17 AM, so this post will be long and probably disjointed at parts. But I just really need to vent so I don't go to bed with all these crazy Twilight thoughts bouncing around in my head...though they probably will anyway.
THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Alright, if you haven't gotten it by now, you deserve to have the book spoiled for you. Here goes.
I was initially extremely excited for Breaking Dawn. Being a newcomer to the Twilight series (beginning of July), my wait wasn't as long as many Twilighters', but I am just as disappointed as I'm sure many of them were.
I got Twilight on a whim--we were at Barnes & Noble, I had just finished a book and needed something to read, Twilight caught my eye (the 10% off sticker certainly helped), and I had heard it was a good book, so I bought for my upcoming vacation the next week. Later that day, I was bored, so I decided it wouldn't hurt to start reading--the book /was/ 498 pages, after all. There was no way I'd actually finish that before we left. I read. And read. And read. And read some more. Before I knew it, I was on page 50. Then page 100. I finally had to cut myself off at page 150 because I had just bought the book, I didn't want to finish it so quickly! For the next three days, I read for hours at a time.
The day before our vacation, I picked up New Moon, because I was sure I would end up finishing Twilight either that day or the next, no matter how hard I tried to supress my desire, my need, to find out what would happen between Bella and Edward. These characters had become so real to me, especially Bella, because I (as well as many other teenage girls) could see a little of myself in her, minus the bagging-the-hot-vampire gene. I ended up finishing Twilight on my way down to North Carolina, and picked up New Moon without skipping a beat. For the rest of the week, I was constantly in my room, reading for hours on end. I ended up getting Eclipse at a specially requested Wal-Mart stop--I couldn't risk finishing New Moon and NOT having Eclipse to begin reading immediately after.
To save an already long story from being even longer, I ended up finishing Eclipse fairly quickly, leaving my mind intently focused on August 2, the release of Breaking Dawn.
As soon as I got home, I went to Barnes & Noble to preorder my copy--I couldn't risk going later and not getting one. The thought of being unable to be immersed in Edward and Bella's world when the book was out there for everyone else to read was not an option. For two weeks, I counted down the days to the book release party (looking up Twilight movie info and getting my friend Sarah and my mom hooked on the series to keep myself occupied). Finally, the day was here.
Sarah and I went to Barnes & Noble and waited with 200+ other people for Breaking Dawn. Finally, after two weeks of waiting (how all you people who bought Eclipse as soon as it came out were able to deal, I will never know), I would find out how the saga would end. Everything would fall into place.
But it didn't.
Here is where my real rant will begin. (It will only be a partial rant, because I have just finished Book 2, Jacob's story, and am only halfway through the book, but I had to vent before I read anymore) As I started to read, something felt different...not right. I kept reading through the wedding, and the honeymoon, and still, the book felt like it was disconnected from the rest of the series. Like it didn't quite fit in with the tone of the other books. And then it happened--I saw it coming from the time she woke up crying for no reason--Bella got pregnant.
Now, this idea seriously disturbed me, because it just didn't feel right. I mean...it's /Edward and Bella/. They have this special kind of love, a love so strong that most people never feel about anyone. They love each other on a level that is almost inconceivable to other people. Bella was supposed to turn into a vampire in some sort of crazy turn of events that invloved the Volturi or some other crazy mythical creature (deranged unicorn, anyone?) after her. But no. She gets pregnant.
To make matters worse, she gets pregnant and doesn't freak out. And because of her freaky little dreams (seriously, all of her dreams are so...vivid. who really has dreams like that? dreams that actually mean something?) where she protects the creepy little vampire toddler (talk about terrible twos...) who kills everyone she loves. I just don't get it.
Then, for some reason unknown to the rest of the sane universe, she asks Rosalie to help her. Knowing that Rosalie never got to have kids. Knowing that Rosalie wants a chile more than anything else in the entire world. I mean, come on. This was bound to not end well.
So, as if all of that wasn't weird enough, the story just stops. And you come to 'Book 2: Jacob'. Now I don't know how all of you felt about New Moon, but I thought parts of it were slow, so I was NOT looking forward to 222 pages of Jacob's point of view. (Besides, Jacob was already halfway on my bad side for kissing Bella with no permission in Eclipse. Grrr.)
As it turns out, I actually LIKED Jacob's point of view. That whole part of the book made me fall in love with Seth, and really made me feel for Jacob. As I read, I liked Jacob more and more. I was surprised to find that I was actually beginning to like the book. But then pregnant Bella reared her ugly head.
Now, I have loved Bella since the very first line of the very first book. Like I've said before, she's such a relatable character, which is one of the things that sucks you in and keeps you reading. I have never not liked her, unlike most Edward Cullen fangirls, who hate her because she gets the fictional love of their lives. But reading that first part, and every part after that, where she talks about that stupid creature inside her...I just wanted to slap her across the face. When she had first found out she was pregnant, she said this:
"From that first little touch, the whole world had shifted. Where before there was just one thing I could not live without, now there were two." (Chapter 7, page 132)
Now, I don't know what happened between this quote and the scene Jacob walks in on when he first goes to attack the Cullens, but she certainly didn't care about hurting ANYONE. She's puking and has these huge bruises and STILL wants to keep the damn thing. She wouldn't listen to Carlisle, or even Edward, the supposed love of her life, who she "[can] not live without", yet is willing to absolutely tear apart to have the stupid thing. Then she has to drink blood for it, which is disgusting in itself. Even later when it starts to get really big...it breaks her RIB and she just grins and bears it because she just "loves" it. UGH. Stephenie Meyer turned Bella from a loveable awkward clumsy teenager into some sort of a martyr who is willing to do whatever it takes and hurt whoever she has to hurt to have this...creature that will probably end up killing her anyway. It just doesn't make sense!
AND to make matters worse, the whole scene where they're taking the thing out of her is disturbing, creepy, and just plain scary.
At this point, I don't think I'm making any sense because I'm typing the thoughts as they're coming out of my head.
OH and, as if the whole storyline wasn't creepy enough, Jacob leaves in a fit of rage because Bella is "dead" and Edward is turning her into a vampire and Jacob thinks it's useless and he decides he's going to go kill the source of all his pain and RIGHT as he's getting ready to spring, he imprints on "Renesmee." BAM! end of book 2. What. The. F&*^*(^&*^*#&^$*&@%^#&%@?!?!?!?! It doesn't make sense and it's just plain weird. Was Stephenie on CRACK when she was writing this book? I mean...I do understand. She loves the characters more than anyone. Okay. She was under a lot of pressure to make the end of this saga really epic and good and amazing. But really? Jacob, Bella's best friend who is in love with her but will never get her falls in love with her half vampire, half human newborn daughter. That's just screwed up.
I mean, Stephenie seriously wouldn't let Jacob catch a break. As if it wasn't hard enough on him to go to her wedding just for Bella's happiness, he now has to find out and deal with the fact that she's pregnant with this creepy little thing that will most likely kill her, leave his wolf family to protect her, see her pregnant and all smiley at him every day, let her talk to him and joke with him, watch her get sliced open and almost eaten by a crazed vampire obsessed with becoming a mother vicariously through Bella, watch her literally DIE, watch Edward try to save her by biting her all over and turning her into a vampire, and finally, the piece de resistance, fall in love with her newborn half human, half vampire daughter. If that;s not a good Jerry Springer episode, I don't know what is.
Alright, I've done enough blabbering/ranting for one night, sorry it probably didn't make any sense, I just had to get some stuff out of my head. I'm seriously disappointed with the book so far...the second half BETTER be better than this. This is NOT how it was supposed to end.
iran
