Kayta’s AP Comp Blob

Knowing the set up of the exam is very important. I now know that among the sources there will be at least one image and that we get an extra fifteen minutes to think about the question. I think that that extra fifteen minutes will be very helpful. The author does really well when he outlines how to create a thesis, but I think that he is too general. I have found that listing the pros and cons of each possible argument helps a lot because then you can address each issue individually in your essay and you can be sure to shoot down the opposing arguments that you thought of. I like how the author explains how to argue the position that you take. To me, it always seemed awkward to address each source as “Source A” or “Source D” seeing just that in print in an essay helped a lot. However I disagree that the college bound student should willing take up skill of a synthesis essay because that implies being happy about writing lots and lots of synthesis essays, and although I may write them, I do not want to have to be happy about them.

The satire serves as an entertaining and socially acceptable way to present socially abhorrent ideas. Dr. Swift can more easily address the issue of poverty through satire then other means because it suits his audience better. Dr. Swift’s audience is people who can read, rich people, people who are not going to be very interested in the plight of the poor as much as the plight of themselves and the country. Many rich men would be more interested in theft prevention then malnourished children. Using satire, Dr. Swift can address the issue of the poor, the drain upon England, and their personal suffering without showing empathy toward the poor which might drive away his audience.

“[B]eggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in stroling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.
…[W]hoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the common-wealth, would deserve so well of the publick, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.”

This passage is very clearly directed at a specific audience: it calls his audiences’, wealthy men, attention to, 1, the problem that they already new about and were concerned about, namely poor thieves, robbers, purse-snatchers, murderers, while also pointing to other problems the poor cause. Dr. Swift mentions the women, potential workers, who cannot work because they are begging alms for their children, but the children are Dr. Swift’s main point. Dr. Swift maintains that these children become criminals or they turn traitor to fight for the pretender who wants to overthrow the English throne in favor of himself.

“Infant’s flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolifick dyet, there are more children born in Roman Catholick countries about nine months after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of Popish infants, is at least three to one in this kingdom, and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the number of Papists among us.”

This passage helps solidify Dr. Swift’s argument by jabbing at Catholics, people who Dr. Swift’s audience does not like. By asserting that his values are the same as his audience’s values, Dr. Swift is using ethos to identify with his audience. Similarly, he used ethos in the above paragraph to identify with his audience. He does this by mentioning “the pretender,” which is another jibe at Catholics, as well as thieves.

The general argument made by John Downe in his letter to his wife is that she should leave England and join him in America. More specifically, John Downe argues that America is in every regard better then England. He writes, “And i can have 100 lbs. of Beef for 10s. English money. Lamb is about five farthings the pound, and the butcher brings it to your door. And as for the bullocks’ heads, sheep and lambs’, they are thrown away, no one will eat them. I went into the market yesterday at New York, and on the outside of the market there were bullocks’ and sheep and lambs’ heads lying underfoot like dogs’ meat. They cut the tongue, and throw the rest away.” In this passage, John Downe is suggesting that in England they were so poor that when they could afford meat, they could only afford the undesirable pieces whereas in America, no one is so poor that they have to buy sheep heads. IN conclusion, John Downe’s belief is that America hold the future for his family, along with thousands of other immigrants. John Downe wishes that his wife and children would cross the Atlantic so that could all live together in prosperity.

Children should be protected from bad influences. In elementary school libraries, books that contain swearing, violence, or sex should be banned. Young children are very impressionable: they parrot the ideas, views, actions, and words of others. Elementary school children have a hard time distinguishing between what was socially appropriate in the 1800’s from what is currently socially appropriate. If young children read books that contain negative stereotypes, such as those found in Huckleberry Finn, they will not grasp the subtle satire, but will see Blacks portrayed as stupid and immoral. Children will come to associate being Black with being stupid. Early impressions are vital and greatly resist change, children should not read these books until they are old enough to understand them fully in their social context.

Although children should be protected from bad influences, where do we draw the line? Who decides that a book has “too much violence” or “bad language”? What is bad language? Racial epitaphs or @$*%? Is a old-fashioned book such as Huckleberry Finn, which contains derogatory words toward Blacks, but is ultimately about how harmful slavery is, an offensive book that should be banned in elementary schools? If children are educated along with what they read, they will not pick up stereotypes in books and apply them to their lives. Children need to learn at an early age that stereotypes of any kind are harmful and untrue, reading a book like Huckleberry Finn can teach them about the harm such stereotypes cause. The danger in banning any book is that “inappropriate” is not easily defined. Some groups would like to ban books that “contribute to the homosexual agenda,” this is dangerous because it reinforces the belief that homosexuality is not normal. Banning any book is a difficult decision because not every parent will agree with the ban. America was founded on a principle of free speech and information, banning books goes against this first amendment right, even in elementary school.

Kennan’s most powerful observation is that power rests in corporations.
Corporations spend millions on lobbyists
Corporations spend millions on politicians who change “inconvenient” laws, hire the companies for plush government contracts (Iraq), veto laws that increase production costs at the expense of safety, the environment, or fair wages.
The companies with the worst human-rights violations or environmental impact spend the most on lobbyists.

Essay in Comic Form

My Photo Essay is here.
Essay

Tuesday was the day. You remember, the day with the trees. The day with all of the running, waving, and shouting. Tuesday was the day when Bobby Morris learned about pots. Remember how he was the fastest tree planter? And when you were all done, that long grueling day kneeling in the dirt, back bent, dirt everywhere. Digging holes large enough for Volkswagens. And after all that, as you admired the long strip of trees between the sidewalk and the street and you assigned the least fatigued (because everyone was to some degree) to collect the empty pots, you discovered six were missing! Six pots buried with the trees, somewhere in that long, long line of newly planted trees! And of course, to complete your misery, and because this is Seattle, it started to rain, great big drops, just what the trees needed. Then when Bobby Morris said he couldn’t remember where he planted the trees you practically started to cry. Finally, after they had all gone home and you’d had no dinner and it was practically midnight and you were all alone, cold, and hungry and had recovered all six pots and you finally got to slog through the mud to your car so you could go home and collapse in bed—that was Tuesday. Remember? But on Wednesday, it all seemed better—look what I did for Earth Day. All of that trouble and bother, but I did it. I did something for Earth Day.

“The Soiling of Old Glory” is a really good picture. There is a lot of movement in the photo, the attacker with his weapon, and the two men struggling with each other. The photo is well focused too, every brick in the square and every wrinkle in the people’s cloths are clearly defined. In fact, this sharpness helps to create the illusion of movement, as the people move, their clothing wrinkles and the sharpness of the photo catches this brief, ever-changing movement creating an image that really appears to be a snapshot in time.

I picked picture 9 .

The Bellelli Family portrait is not balanced. It is divided into two unequal parts: the right third greatly differs in value from the left side of the portrait. The right is darker and there is a clear line between the two sides. There is also a suggestion of a division of the painting equally creating a top and bottom, below and above a small table top. The focus in this painting is on the girl in the middle, between the father on the right and the mother on the left. The girls pinafore pulls in the eye.

I analyzed a photo from the NPR broadcast about a new book, “It’s Complicated”. The first thing you see in this picture of a girl sitting on a couch is the girl. The photo is in black and white, but the girl is the lightest thing on the page. Her shirt contrasts to the darker background that surrounds her. There are three distinct areas of the photo—the top, middle, and bottom. The middle is the lightest, light appears to be coming from a window or bright lamp on the left side of the portrait. The light aluminates the girl and the couch, but not below the couch or much above the girl where there is a painting. The girl is sitting on one end of the couch, centered in the photo right where the couch cushions meet. Centered above her is a painting of a landscape with trees and possibly a building. At first glance, the girl looks young, about ten years of age, but at second glance certain abnormalities appear. Here arms, legs, and feet seem out of proportion to the rest of here body and perhaps oddly shaped. Her left arm does not look normal, but it is hard to tell exactly what is wrong. It could just be a trick of the light. The photographer shows the girl’s deformity so directly that it could just be a trick of the light.

I mostly agreed with one of the critics that I picked and mostly disagreed with the other critic that I picked. However, I thought that neither of the critics that I picked mentioned the most important point: that it was impossible to separate the government waffle from the government truth (which so often is waffle anyway). For me, what made “Fog of War” unpersuasive was the fact that I couldn’t tell when McWhat’s His Name was lying, exaggerating, protecting someone, somewhat telling the truth, and really telling the truth because there was no McSomeone foil, no one to disagree and say “Hey, I remember this differently…wasn’t this how it happened?” In “Fog of War” no one ever said that, McSomeone said what he wanted and brought in sources to back himself up. The critic’s reviews that I read called “Fog of War” “a masterpiece” and “a gas attack.” I think that some of this critic’s arguments against the film were trivial and based entirety on personal preference. “I’ll never understand the appeal of political films that try to reveal the truth about something years after it could possibly make a difference to anyone.” However, both critics had meaningful things, both good and bad, to say about “Fog of War.” Personally, I liked the dominos falling across the map of Asia because it was really cool, and how it symbolized how one thing lead to another during war, as well as the domino theory that lead the United States into Vietnam.

Kayta Samuels
Book Criticism
March 20th, 08

An Amoral Moral Man

Conventional morals never seemed to have touched this man, John Laroche, the protagonist of The Orchid Thief. Although often professing a supposed moral sense, to the reader John Laroche is clearly a very strange and amoral man. John Laroche’s moral compass is attuned to “obey the letter of the law and not the spirit” while coming up with wild improbable schemes for helping someone or something. Susan Orlean, the author, began this tale of orchidelirium as a newspaper article for the New Yorker. However, the story of the orchid thief seems ready made for a novel—with stops and starts in the life of John Laroche.

The story starts when Susan Orlean travels to Florida to interview John Laroche. John Laroche has just been charged with poaching orchids from a state-owned swamp. Orlean describes John as “a tall guy, skinny as a stick, pale-eyed, slouch-shouldered, and sharply handsome, in spite of the fact that he is missing all his front teeth. He has the posture of al dente spaghetti and the nervous intensity of someone who plays a lot of video games…for as long as he can remember he has been passionate and driven…Laroche’s passions arrived unannounced and ended explosively.” Throughout the story, Orlean describes her adventures as she travels around Florida exploring why people are driven to do insane things in the name of orchids. Orlean’s story chronicles the “story of beauty and obsession” of orchidelirium that began in the 1800’s and is still taking place today.

The Orchid Thief is a different kind of book. It has a dreamy quality to it that reflects the setting, the hot, steamy and sleepy swamps of southern Florida. There is much description in the story—descriptions of exotic tropical orchid flowers from India, Brazil, Florida, Central America. These descriptions are so vivid that it seems a shame that the book was not printed with color illustrations. Throughout the book, as is to be expected, there are many descriptions of many different kinds of orchid flowers: from the ghost orchid to lady’s slipper, flowers that are of all sizes, shapes, kinds, and value are described in enthralling detail.
One orchid “was tall with long, arching leaves and a flower shaped like a little dustpan. The leaves were blackish green and the flower itself was glossy yellow, the yellow of a newly waxed taxi, and it was spattered with hundreds and hundreds of burgundy flecks. The flecks were slightly ovoid, and they were clustered in curving rows so that they looked as if they had been painted on as the flower spun around. Staring at the pattern flecks was dizzying. Staring at it for a long time was hypnotizing.”
The detailed descriptions, slower pace, and muffled emotions set a dreamy quality to the novel. This quality is reminiscent of ¬To Kill a Mockingbird or a John Irving novel.
“In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.”

The emotions in ¬The Orchid Thief are muffled, no one seems angry, upset or on time. Everyone is laidback and somehow, just does not seem to really be there. However, despite the odd, dream-like quality of the writing that makes the book old before its time, The Orchid Thief deals with issues of today. It is, after all, only ten years old. Conservation is a big issue within The Orchid Thief. Conserving the orchids in the forests around the world, including Florida, where people, or new construction or farms are threatening forests, swamps, and rainforests all around the world. This wanton destruction is a mirror to the past destruction wreaked by the orchid hunters of the old in the 1800’s.

The Orchid Thief can connect to any state or country. Even Washington has orchids, although they do not have the tropical flair of the Floridian orchids. In this way, The Orchid Thief will never cease being relevant. John Laroche, while like no man that I have ever read about, is relatable because of his passionate obsession for orchids. One can understand why Laroche loves orchids the way that he does and why he, and others like him, go to such lengths to acquire new orchids. Although the writing style is unconventional, the subject of the book and the characters in the book will never go out of style making The Orchid Thief a classic forever.

Works Cited

“Novel Analysis to Kill a Mockingbird.” Novel Guide. 2008. .

“Orchid.” All Posters. 2008. 24 Mar. 2008 .

Orlean, Susan. The Orchid Thief. New York: Random House, 1998.

I read a review of a book about Zombies! The review of World War Z, almost had me convinced to break my vow of not ever reading a zombie book—until the end of the review when the reviewer mentioned what a great horror story the story was. I am not at all a fan of horror. The reviewer success lay in the depiction of the story as something that was not the run-of-the-mill zombie story—badly written, unoriginal, and romantic. The review began with the opening paragraph of World War Z, a paragraph that showed the excellent writing style and voice that the author had. Then the reviewer describes the format of the book, giving a general description of the events in the book without giving away many specifics or important plot points. However, the reviewer does give away on specific event, assumedly not an important one, to give an example of what kind of book it is—darkly humorous and horror-like. In the next paragraph the reviewer discusses the technical aspects of the book—the pacing, growth, and underlying ideas in the novel. The reviewer concludes with a short paragraph summing up how good the book was.

The reviews that I read on Amazon about the Orchid Thief were formatted differently then the Powells review. One particularly smart-sounding review dealt primarily with the technical aspects of the memoir; pacing, style, and voice. Other reviews focused more on the subject (moral behavior, obsession and addiction) or main events of the book (introduction to characters, extensive history, conclusion).

Mine is a page at:
Familia, Defined By Love

Finished it.
Didn’t like it.
Every character was immoral, selfish, incorporative, and thought the world revolved around themselves.

Postrel defines beauty by facial features. She says that some faces have features that people, including infants find better then other faces with different features. Postrel backs up her definition of beauty with scientific evidence that infants and adults both find the same people beautiful. Postrel also clams that “not every girl is beautiful the way she is”. Postrel is right that the genetic lottery is unfair and some people are closer to beauty than others. Postrel brings up a 2005 Dove advertising campaign directed at everyday women and girls. The advertisements stressed that no one, not even models, are truly perfectly beautiful. Dove achieved this by showing a normal looking person beautified, first by cosmeticians, then by computer technicians, who then appears on a billboard advertisement for Dove beauty products. Dove showed that beauty could be a thing for the masses. Postrel, however, disagrees. Postrel believes that beauty is too lofty for most people to acquire. She believes that beauty, like intelligence, is mostly luck and, while many people may be satisfied with their looks, they know that they are not beautiful.

So far so good. A rather immoral man is on trial for stealing orchids out of a swamp in Florida. He claims that he decimated the swamp for the betterment of flowerkind. Odd view.

Now, Orlean is running through a rather long and somewhat boring history of orchid trade.

And here, the immoral man of above says that he feels some remorse about what he did. He does not seem very nice though, kind of insecure or controlling.

Rhetoric is a very important part of politics in the United States. Politicians use rhetoric to convince the American public to vote for them. A good use of rhetoric convinces people. Sometimes two politicians have the same views on issues and it is rhetoric that decides how people vote. Often, too, Americans do not pay attention to the issues, but instead base most of their vote on what the politician looks like or how good at speaking they are.

Listening to Khakis was an interesting article about advertising khaki pants to men. The ads for khaki pants that the article described sounded like good ads. I think that ads

H. L. Mencken’s “The Feminine Mind” argues that women are more intelligent than men in the important intelligences. Mencken argues that feminine institution, which enables women to understand and analyze people, in particular men, and to know their weaknesses as human beings. Mencken believes that men have some unique talents, but that their talents for labor and strength are not characteristics of intelligence. Mencken writes, “Men are strong. Men are brave in physical combat. Men have sentiment. Men are romantic, and love what they conceive to be virtue and beauty. Men incline to faith, hope and charity. Men know how to sweat and endure. Men are amiable and fond. But in so far as they show the true fundamentals of intelligence–in so far as they reveal a capacity for discovering the kernel of eternal verity in the husk of delusion and hallucination and a passion for bringing it forth—to that extent, at least, they are feminine, and still nourished by the milk of their mothers.” Mencken implies here that intelligence is inherently feminine and that men who do possess it are being effeminate. Mencken believes that intelligent men like Shakespeare, Bonaparte, and Lincoln all had “a wide streak of woman” in them.

I disagree with Mencken because I believe that Mencken’s definition of intelligence is one, at best an exclusive definition, and two, not exclusively feminine. I believe that men and women, while having a few different talents, share most of the many components of intelligence. For example, women have more emotional intelligence while men have more spatial and problem solving intelligence. However, men and women have proven to do equally well at mathematics. Mencken’s argument is based on several anecdotes, not hard data which limits his logos and ethos approach. Unfortunately intelligence is so ill defined that it is difficult to argue Mencken’s essay without resorting to disqualifying the argument based upon differences in intelligence definitions. However Mencken’s argument places too much emphasis on emotional intelligence and assigns this intelligence with too much certainty to women. Both sexes are capable of all kinds of intelligence and neither sex is largely more intelligent than the other.

My first reaction to the article was laughter. It was funny and satirical. I think that in some households in the US, the wife really does do all of the work. However, in most households, I think that the work is more evenly divided, although women probability do more work then men. Sykes’s criticism of equality of labor is, to a certain extent, still relevant today. I feel like there is a culture, not necessarily based on ethnic lines, in America where this stereotype is true. If women were not discriminated against sentences about male nurses would not stand out. However, discrimination against women has decreased since the ’70’s. An essay on “Why I Want a Husband” could describe the typical ’50’s wife without children who weaves and raises money for charities.

Q: It is very important to treat others with compassion and kindness. To hold up the rights of those who cannot.
A: Of course it is.
Q: If a person becomes disabled, we do not strip them of their rights.
A: That would be wrong.
Q: If a person is born disabled, we do not ignore their rights even if they cannot claim them for themselves.
A: Someone else stands up for them. Or the law stands up for them.
Q: But the law does not always stand up for them. Sometimes the law is unfair and must be challenged and changed.
A: When many people stands up for the wronged parties. Like in the Civil Rights Movement or the Disability Rights Movement. We learned that our laws were unjust and needed to be changed.
Q: Exactly, but prior to that change we believed in our laws wholeheartedly. We did not think that we were being unjust.
A: No.
Q: All of the time we are learning to protect those who need protection. From women to the disabled to minorities to the poor to gays/lesbians to the people without rights.
A: Yes.
Q: These people for whom we stood up for could not always speak up for themselves. Sometimes their voices were not strong enough to be heard. It took regular people to speak with them or for them.
A: To improve our laws.
Q: Like those without a strong voice, animals need our help being heard. They are not much different from some of us. Like the severely disabled, the animals cannot speak, but they react as humans and the feel as humans, and all animals feel. They feel pain, fear, hunger and loneliness.

1) Explain the first sentence.
2) Explain what Russell means by “In fact the whole antithesis between self and the rest of the world, which is implied in the doctrine of self-denial, disappears as soon as we have any genuine interest in persons or things outside ourselves.”
3) How effective is Russel’s simile of the billiard ball? Would he be better without it? A different metaphor?
4) Explain what Russell means by a “citizen of the universe.”
5) How is this essay like/unlike Singer’s Animal Liberation in style, tone, and content?

1) “The happy life is to an extraordinary extent the same as the good life” means that people with good lives are happy and that people who are happy have good lives.
2) Russell means that the separation that exists between the self and the world disappears when we have a vested interest outside of our selves. “we should desire the happiness of those whom we love, but not as an alternative to our own”, we will try to make someone happy, but ourselves always come first.
3) Russell’s simile of the billiard ball is good. When he describes people on their own they do seem hard and the collide when their interests conflict with others interests or even their interests for other people. However, billiards is not a game typically played in America, so a different simile might help for American audiences.
4) When Russell refers to someone as a “citizen of the universe” he means that they are free, not bothered by conflicts of interest.
5) This essay is unlike Singer’s in that it uses less pathos and less logos. Singer’s essay had distinctive arguments with logical evidence backing it up. Russell’s arguments are not like that or a numerous.

The general argument made by Peter Singer in his work “Animal Liberation” is that animals, like women, need liberation. More specifically, Peter Singer argues that animals. He writes, “If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration.” In this passage, Peter Singer is suggesting that animals suffer and it is therefore immoral to not acknowledge their suffering. In conclusion, X’s belief is animals should not be used in experiments.

In my view, Peter Singer is right because animals do suffer and should not suffer. More specifically, I believe that every consideration should be taken for animals in experiments and tests. For example, people should make sure to treat animal subjects humanly, not denying them anything that they would deny a human. Although Peter Singer might object that animals should not be used in experiments, I maintain that animals should be used in human experiments that have gone through a ethics committee. Therefore, I conclude that animals should be used humanly in humane experiments.

Rousseau’s philosophical essay claimed that Rousseau is not a philosopher. Rousseau says that philosophers are ignorant and think only themselves to be right. After his rant of philosophers, Rousseau states his own philosophy.

Rousseau’s theater letter claims that theater is bad, small towns are good, and women are the weaker sex. Rousseau considers theater to be bad because it introduces people to new ideas, similar to the arguments made against violent video games after school shootings. In small towns, everything can be more heavily controlled, neighbors know what their neighbors are doing, limiting the antisocial actions members of the community can commit.

It is a well known fact that liberal Unitarians Universalists (UUs) dislike Evangelical Christians. Actually, UUs do not merely dislike them, but down right Harry-and-Snape hate them. It is also true, that Evangelicals do not like UUs. In fact, they to probably Malfoy-and-Harry hate them. The overarching truth is; however, that

Dave Barry’s “Lost in the Kitchen” and Dave Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day” are both examples of humor writing. Barry and Sedaris use details and hyperbole in a unique way that gives them their own writing style. Barry uses hyperbole often throughout his essay: Barry describes the American people hyperbolically as “smelling vaguely like yams and covered in a thin layer of turkey grease,” he again uses hyperbole when he describes men in the kitchen. Barry’s humor also stems from his use of the stereotyped men who cannot look after children or cook food, and women who can do everything at once and his way of changing the subject and talking to the reader. “I asked my wife to read this and tell me what she thought…” This abrupt change of subject and change from subjectively narrating a story to talking to the reader is also humorous. Sedaris, in “Me Talk Pretty One Day” also uses stereotypes and details to create humor. Compared to Dave Barry, Sedaris has much more detail in his essay on learning to speak French.

David Foster Wallace in his essay “Shipping Out” uses many different rhetorical strategies to describe luxury cruse ship lines. Wallace’s use of rhetorical strategies emphasis his negative and positive views toward luxury cruse lines. Wallace uses parallel structure often throughout his essay: the parallel structure expresses what he learned, but does not express his opinion. “I have now seen sucrose beaches and water a very bright blue. I have seen an all-red leisure suit with flared lapels. I have smelled suntan lotion spread over 2,100 pounds of hot flesh. I have…” The parallel structure is a list of what he has learned, but it is his diction that expresses his view. “Sucrose beaches” and “computer-enhanced sunsets” are examples of his diction that reflects positively upon the luxury cruse lines. However, most of his diction reflects negatively upon the luxury cruse lines. The sentence, “I have smelled suntan lotion spread over 2,100 pounds of hot flesh,” contains mostly negative diction and ideas: the smell of suntan lotion, 2,100 pounds of flesh, hot flesh are all negative images. Although Wallace describes some parts of the cruse positively, most of his diction implies a negative, experience filled with lazy, stupid, and shallow tourists.

1-16-8
Hockenberry’s persona is one with knowledge and experience. “Going from being a correspondent at Dateline–a rich source of material for The Daily Show—to working at the MIT Media Lab” is Hockenberry’s way of causally proving his expertise. Hockenberry’s persona is also enhanced by his intelligence. “It was neither the first nor the last time that a television executive mistook a fundamental technological change for a new gadget”, Hockenberry is merely trying to say that he is more farsighted than the TV executives. Hockenberry’s experience and intelligence create his persona. As an author he seems to know what he is writing about, because he has proven that his is a veteran of the TV reporting field.
Hockenberry’s experiences through his job as a network reporter lead him to believe that TV “news” is entirely dictated by the TV executive. TV executives pander to those with the money ignoring the empathy and humanity in the instances that they cover. After the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, it was the TV executives who decided what America needed to know—and that knowledge centered around who had the money, power and where the emotion lay in the story. A story without emotion is not a story.
I agree with Hockenberry about the uselessness of TV news reporting. I can remember that after our own small earthquake about seven years ago all of the TV news stations showed the exact same building and crushed car, but from different angles. Unless you looked closely, it looked like many buildings and many cars had been decimated by the quake. Even now, every time I watch the TV “news”, it always carries stories about murders or dead bodies discovered in the woods—stories that do not even make it to the local section of the next day’s paper. I recently read a statistic about news reporting that said while murders have declined in the past twenty or thirty years, the number of reports of murders on the TV news has climbed 600%.

In a concrete hive the bee stands at his lonely place at the dead-gray conveyor belt. The nectar that arrives like clockwork is the only color aside from the bright buttercup strips in the bee. The deep carnation of the nectar in the plain clear glass is the obvious center, set off against the grey floor, walls, and ceiling. However, this only beauty is marred by its own existence—the nameless bee’s apathy and tiredness that is felt about this shining poppy liquid. One of millions of bees, the bee pours down the measured amount one of millions of times. Millions of apathetic bees, millions of tulip drinks.

A tired pause after the buttercup-bee downs the liquid. The bee then regurgitates a thick marigold liquid back into the glass, filling it to the mark. When the bee is done, it is sent down the conveyer belt on its way through the factory. The daffodil liquid will be used to power the bee’s oppressors. The mechanical birds that enslave the bees.

As the bee down the deep rose liquid for a countless time among many countless times, something changes. Every time this action has been repeated the bee’s emotion grows stronger, a pattern that feeds upon its self—building the deep carnation anger. This time, as the conveyor belt moves the poinsettia liquid toward the bee and the bee downs the liquid and the tulip anger in the bee deepens, it suddenly throws out a blossom. Suddenly as the bee’s anger is blossoming, the bee acts and stops. A quiet, angry, seething protest. A lazy summer afternoon that is full of quiet tension. The clock on the wall, its hands moving senselessly, chimes. A bird pops out, a bird of warning. It calls to the masters, those who take the sunflower liquid, those who enslave. But the quiet rose anger of the bee does not shrivel and die. The poppy anger has had too much fuel to be extinguished by the will of the bee.

I listened to This American Life. The story I heard was about religion and secularism. A Christian church was establishing a “prayer shield” where they would walk down every street and pray for every household, business, and empty lot in the city of Colorado Springs. The writer puts in small details, anecdotes about her experiences to the story that she is writing. The author’s insights and feelings about the story help to expound upon it by adding a depth. Not only does she tell about what the people in the story think and feel, but she talks about how their actions, thoughts, and ideas affect her. Her thoughts clarify the show, they enable the listener to pick up on the nonverbal clues that the writer cannot provide, but are essential to fully understanding someone. Sarcasm, for example is very confusing written down, but spoken gives a very clear message; as does body language and eye contact.

1-9-08
Lars Eighner’s “On Dumpster Diving”, uses description, anecdotes, and facts to enhance his essay.
“Canned goods, for example, turn up fairly often in the Dumpsters I frequent. All except the most phobic people would be willing to eat from a can, even if it came from a Dumpster. Canned goods are among the safest of foods to be found in Dumpsters but are not utterly foolproof.”
This paragraph, typical of Lars Eighner’s “On Dumpster Diving” contains facts, “among the safest of foods to be found”…“are not utterly foolproof”; description, long sentence; anecdote/fact, “canned goods…turn up fairly often in the dumpsters I frequent.” The details are what make the anecdotes come to life. The anecdotes and facts give Lars Eighner creditability, but the facts make what he is doing sound safe and like a good idea. The description also helps connect the facts to the anecdotes and keeps the facts from being boring scientific data on canned food acidity or something similar. Lars Eighner’s tone also helps make his essay more interesting and make him seem more sane and sensible.
“Although very rare with modem canning methods, botulism is a possibility. Most other forms of food poisoning seldom do lasting harm to a healthy person, but botulism is almost certainly fatal and often the first symptom is death. Except for carbonated beverages…”
Yes you can die, now about carbonated beverages… This lighthearted tone even in the face of death helps move the essay along, increase Lars Eighner’s creditability, and make it fun and interesting to read.

The persona expressed in William Buckley’s “Why Don’t We Complain” was vastly different from the one expressed in “Autobiographical Notes.” Buckley’s persona seemed to be that of a wealthy, white, fat man who, as he sets his own example, complains. The persona in the “Autobiographical Notes”, by James Baldwin, is that of a very personable African-American who is much easier to relate to. The general theme of “Why Don’t We Complain” is of compliant, and while Buckley brings up some very good points, it still reads like a letter of complaint addressed to the American people. This negative tone and spoiled persona make Buckley seem unrelatable and annoying—the kind of man that gives American tourists in France a bad name. Baldwin’s persona is open and funny. Although both men use anecdotes, Baldwin’s are funnier and more positive, which makes him seem like an acquaintance, not a complainer. Baldwin’s funniness comes, in part, from his conversational style, which is gathered from his use of parentheses. Parentheses allow Baldwin to state an idea and then expound upon it with a different voice. Parentheses add details “(It was a Rosenwald Fellowship.)” and they allow Baldwin to break from the more formal style of essay writing “(Truce, by the way, is the best one can hope for.)” Baldwin’s persona is ultimately more likeable because of the way he treats the reader as a friend or acquaintance.

In 2007 I changed my mind about democracy twice. First I decided that a multiple party system would be better than our two party system, but then I changed my mind and decided that our two party system had advantages.

Dec. 6
The government was justified in arresting the workers for suspicion in the biological attack on over 400 children. While the workers were sentenced to death, think of all the children who would now die.
If you allow the few workers to be freed, you endanger the lives of the four-hundred children who were biologically attacked. And if the workers will attack 400 children, will they stop there? Will they not go on to attack more children, and more children. Freeing these workers will cause the deaths of millions of children, our society will become uneducated and stagnant–all because of a miscarriage of justice.
Our country’s scientists proved that these poor children were attacked by these workers.

Malcolm X, in his 1964 speech “Ballot or the Bullet” uses logos, ethos, and pathos to structure his argument, persuade his listeners, and demonstrate his creditability. Malcolm X states his use of ethos straight out, in the second paragraph of his speech: “I would like to clarify some things that refer to me personally—concerning my own personal position.” Malcolm X is referring to his religion—Islam. He knows that some people will hold that against him. Immediately into his speech, Malcolm X establishes his creditability with his listeners. He allays their concerns over his religion and he establishes his creditability of a freedom fighter. His education is clearly marked when he mentions the history of colonization. He proves to be well informed when he mentions current world events when the oppressed threw off their oppressors. Malcolm X’s theory of Black Nationalism, also lends creditability to Malcolm X because it is well thought out, logical, and feasible. Malcolm X’s theory sounds like it could work, and that reflects upon the creator of the theory.

While Malcolm X is building his character and his reputation with his audience, he is also appealing to the emotions of his audience. Malcolm X styles himself, and the other workers like him, as “freedom fighters”. These people are fighting for freedom. They will be beaten, jailed, or killed in their fight for your freedom! For that reason Malcolm X did not refer to the workers as “civil right’s people”—their “freedom fighters.” Malcolm X does not refer to the white business owners who employ and serve Black people as factory owners or employers: these white men are referred to as the “enemy”, a title that packs much more emotional punch. “Think of the image of a someone sitting. An old woman can sit. An old man can sit. A chump can sit. A coward can sit. Anything can sit.” These sentences emphasize Malcolm X’s use of pathos—emotional appeal. “Old women”, “old men”, “chump”, “coward”, and “thing” all hold negative emotions. Malcolm uses diction alone to change sit-ins from heroic, brave acts to lazy, cowardly acts that do not bring change. Malcolm X’s image of people sitting is a powerful pathos persuasion.

One of the most important aspects of Malcolm X’s argument is logos. While ethos sets up Malcolm X’s persona and pathos persuades the audience quickly, logos acts under it all. An argument without logos will not stand up to close review—ethos enables the audience to trust the speaker and pathos swings the audience’s emotions, catching them up in the spell, but it does not last. Logos lasts and logos; therefore, is the most important part of the argument. Malcolm X’s use of logos is very noticeable in his description of Black Nationalism. Malcolm X describes how money belonging to the Black people is spent in White stores. The money just drains out of the community. Malcolm X believes that Black people should invest money into the community, start business, hire Black workers, and improve the Black community with Black money.

Dec. 5
I read a TAPPED article Mike Huckabee’s statement that his success in the polls is obviously due to God’s interference. I also read a DAILY KOS article about Iraq.
TAPPED used a video of Mike Huckabee’s statement to provide background information behind the opinion blog. The blog provides a short sentence describing the nature of the video, however; the political leaning of the blog is not revealed until the text after the video. Alternatively, the DAILY KOS reveals the political leaning of the blog in the first two sentences. TAPPED’s style of starting out without a bias is a good one for obscure, little know issues and for unfavorable positions. If many people disagree with your stance, start out without bias, and then gradually phase in your arguments. THE DAILY KOS’s way of insulting Cheney, does not inspire people who disagree to read on. This is not a good way to influence others.

Nov. 29
My essay was pretty good, however I need to site my sources more and incorporate more information into my essay. The memories are slipping from my head. On a synthesis essay, the sources need to talk to each other, you cannot just summarize the sources. I think I did a good job of this.

Nov. 27
The decision is in your hands. Only you can prevent the preventable horror of the twenty-first century. Prevent the theft of our air-waves–vote against I-38.

When a unthinking person steps on an anthill, crushing the work of ages, grinding it into dust and powder, returning it to the meanest building blocks of dirt and stone, who takes the blame? Does the queen of the realm, the one who oversees the work and toil of her loyal retainers, take the blame? Or, instead of a noble self-sacrifice, is it declared a mistake, an unforeseeable event in the history of the hill. A time to make anew and rebuild, better, stronger? Who now is to blame, am I responsible for the actions of another thinking, senate individual? American history stresses the importance of our actions, that only we can be responsible. Americans have established a tradition of taking responsibility for our own actions, enabling our great nation to rise above our self. We similarly need to rise above our mistakes,
When the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they took their actions into their own hands, trusting in the American People to help them achieve what had never before been done—a revolution, and a democracy. I, like the Founding Fathers, placed my trust in an individual, an individual that did not deserve my trust.

Thoreau wants to live simply, to cut out excess options, problems, and actions. With this reduction, Thoreau believes that people can become wiser and more connected with nature. Intellect, Thoreau believes, cannot replace, and often gets in the way of, wisdom. Thoreau’s language and diction also enforce this philosophy. Thoreau uses short sentences to emphasize his important points and to draw the reader in again. “What news!” draws the reader’s attention to an example of philosophy.

Thoreau also emphasizes certain points in his essay by repeating them. “Simplify, simplify”, Thoreau repeats “simplify” because he thinks that is really important. Thoreau also uses a metaphor of the German Confederacy: “[o]ur life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment.” There are too many petty things, or states, in our lives. “An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest”, Thoreau believes that honest men have no need for lots of detail.

“Reinventing Humanity” and “Staying Human in an Engineered Age” are both about the prospect of mechanically engineering humans to be super-humans. In “Reinventing Humanity”, the author considers the possibility of downloading knowledge and skills through scientifically enhanced brains. “Staying Human in an Engineered Age” also consider this possibility, but with a very different attitude. In “Staying Human…”, the author fears the possibility of humans becoming less-then-human human-machines. The author of “Reinventing Humanity” uses poetic language to describe his predictions. Phrases such as “Beyond the knee of the curve” emphasize the mysteriousness of the future, and help make his far-reaching predictions plausible. The author also uses code grooming to further his predictions. He refers to the process of cell division and gene expression with scientific words that impress the reader and give an impression of knowledge and expertise. The author is clearly a member of a special group. In “Staying Human…”, the author also use code grooming to prove his expertise and knowledge. However, unlike in “Reinventing Humanity”, “Staying Human…”, uses many quotes to support and lend credence to his views. The quotes are from important people in genetics, people such as James Watson, the man who discovered the double helix using Rosalind Franklin’s work.

The advent of television changed American history—as obesity rates rose, reading rates fell, and people started to spend more and more time behind the screen, the term “couch potato” was termed—what was the impact of television? Specifically, how has television changed America’s defining act—the presidential debate?
Before the first presidential debate was televised in 1960 between Kennedy and Nixon, people learned about the candidates through newspapers, magazines, and the radio. Candidates had ample time to answer reporters’ questions and they were often out of the public’s eye, therefore; attention was drawn, not to how the candidates looked, but what they said. Despite this positive emphasis, however; the presidential election has not been downgraded by the television taint. Instead of having days to get their answers to tricky questions from the press, presidents today are forced to answer questions as soon as they are posed, forcing the presidents to state their agenda, not dance around the issue on tiptoes inoffensively. No one is helped by an ambiguous answer, and less time leaves presidential candidates out in the open, without cover. Granted, it does not always workout that way, but the advent of television has gone a long way.
Television added a new face to America’s news and entertainment. Picture was finally, fully, introduced. However, this change was not the ultimate break for Kennedy, as some, such as White, have suggested. While Kennedy, in his dark suite, good makeup, and posture might have appeared to advantage, American voters would have known the looks of both the candidates through still photos in magazines and newspapers. Perhaps, Kennedy, was simply a better candidate, as Menand Lewis stated in “Masters of the Matrix: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Culture of the Image”. Americans had known the looks of their perspective presidents since the gel-plaiting technique was developed.
Television most influential role, is introducing the American people to their candidates. Americans can now see and hear their future presidents. No longer are the candidates’ voices simply hear from afar, but the American people are now able to watch, and to feel apart of, the presidential campaign, especially the presidential debate. Roderick P. Heart, was right in that the closeness of television does bring the government closer to the people.

Wikipedia

I live alone with two cats, who sleep on my legs. There is a yellow one, and a black one whose name is Small. In the morning, I joke to the black one, Do you remember last night? Do you remember? I throw them both out before breakfast, so I can eat.
There is a spider, too, in the bathroom, of uncertain lineage, bulbous at the abdomen and drab, whose six-inch mess of web works, works somehow, works miraculously, to keep her alive and me amazed. The web is in a corner behind the toilet, connecting tile wall to tile wall. The house is new, the bathroom is immaculate, save for the spider, her web, and the sixteen or so corpses tossed on the floor.
Today the earwig shines darkly, and gleams what there is of him: a dorsal curve of thorax and abdomen, and a smooth pair of pincers by which I knew his name. Next week, if the other bodies are my indication, he’ll be shrunk and gray, webbed to the floor with dust. The sow bugs beside him are curled and empty, fragile, a breath away from brullte fluff. The spiders lie on their sides, translucent and ragged, their legs drying in knots. The moths stagger against each other, headless, in a confusion of arcing strips of chitin like peeling varnish, like a jumble of buttresses for cathedral vaults, like nothing resembling moths, so that I would hesitate to call them moths, except that I have had some experience with the figure Moth reduced to a nub.
Two summers ago, I was camped alone in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I had hauled myself and gear up there to read, among other things, The Day on Fire, by James Ullman, a novel about Rimbaud that had made me want to be a writer when I was sixteen; I was hoping it would do it again. So I read every day sitting by a tree, while warblers sang in the leaves overhead and beside worms trailed their inches over the twiggy dirt at my feet, and I read every night by candlelight, while barred owls called in the forest and pale moths seeking mates massed round my head in the clearing, where my light made a ring.
Moths kept flying into the candle. They would hiss and recoil, reeling upside down in the shadows among my cooking pans. Or they would singe their wings and fall, and their hot wings, as if melted, would stick to the first thing they touched- a pan, a lid, a spoon-so that the snagged moths could struggle only in tiny arcs, unable to flutter free. These I could realize by a quick flip with a stick; in the morning I would find my cooking stuff decorated with torn flecks of moth wings, ghostly triangles of shiny dust here and there on the aluminum. So I read the, and boiled water, and replenished candles, and read on.
One night a moth flew into the candle, was caught, burnt dry, and held. I must have been staring at the candle, or maybe I looked up when the shadow crossed my page; at any rate, I saw it all. A golden female moth, a biggish one with a two-inch wingspread, flapped into the fire, drooped abdomen into the wet wax, stuck, flamed, and frazzled in a second.Her moving wings ignited like tissue paper, like angels’ wings, enlarging the circle of the darkness the sudden blue sleeves of my sweater, the green leaves of jewelweed by my side, the ragged red trunk of a pine; at once the light contracted again and the moth’s wings vanished in a fine, foul smoke. At the same time, her six legs clawed, curled, blackened, and ceased, disappearing utterly. And her head jerked in spasms, making a spattering noise; her antennae crisped and burnt away and her heaving mouthparts cracked like pistol fire. When it was all over, her head was, so far as I could determine, gone, gone the long way of her wings and legs. Her head was a hole lost to time. All that was left was the glowing horn shell of her abdomen and thorax-a fraying, partially collapsed gold tube jammed upright in the candle’s round pool.
And then this moth-essence, this spectacular skeleton, began to act as a wick. She kept burning. The wax rose in the moth’s body from her soaking abdomen to her thorax to the shattered hole where her head should have been, and widened into a flame, a saffron-yellow flame that robed her to the ground like an immolating monk. That candle had two wicks, two winding flames of identical light, side by side. The moth’s head was fire. She burned for two hours, until I blew her out.
She burned for two hours without changing, without swaying or kneeling-only glowing within, like a boiling fire glimpsed through silhouetted walls, like a hollow saint, like a flame-faced virgin gone to God, while I read by her light, kindled while Rimbaud in Paris burnt out his brain in a thousand poems, while night pooled wetly at my feet.
So. That is why I think those hollow shreds on the bathroom floor are moths. I believe I know what moths look like, in any state.
I have three candles here on the table which I disentangle from the plants and light when visitors come. The cats avoid them, though Small’s tail caught fire once. I rubbed it out before she noticed. I don’t mind living alone. I like eating alone and reading, I don’t mind sleeping alone. The only time I mind being alone is when something is funny, when I am laughing at something funny, I wish someone were around. Sometimes I think it is pretty funny that I sleep alone.

Compare/contrast with Woolf in terms of purpose, rhetorical strategies, metaphor choices, and syntax with Woolf’s Death of a Moth.

What do you think of technology and science? Is science (and the scientific method) the best way to look at the world? Do you wish you could change your relationship with technology? Do you think that the world would be better off if it were more scientific? Explain with examples.