TOW #14 (non-fiction) Barack Obama and George Clooney are right: Sony blew "The Interview" by NYDailyNews

This Friday, Sony Entertainment released the shocking news that they weren't showing "The Interview." The FBI and South Korea both confirmed that it was North Korea, the very country the show was satirizing, that hacked into Sony and publicized all the comments Sony made about different actors and Obama. Then, North Korea took more action by threatening to attack the movie theaters that were showing "The Interview." Many theaters decided to not show the movie, and Sony decided not to show the movie at all. Was this a smart move on Sony's behalf, helping protect citizens from North Korean attacks? Or was this a sign of loss to terror? The New York Daily News thinks that this showed America's weakness. They use quotes from credible sources and consistently bring up Americanism to show that Sony made the wrong decision.

The NYDaily News first quotes two very influential people, president Obama and actor George Clooney. Obama states that they should ,"not get into a pattern in which you’re intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks.” Sony Entertainment showed cowardice and that they, "made a mistake." The editorial also uses the actor's point of view. Clooney says they need, "a new way of handling our business." Both sources are extremely credible, one, the president, the other, an actor extremely familiar with the entertainment business. Both show that Sony Entertainment made the wrong decision and that America cannot allow terrorism to infringe upon America'

s freedom of speech.

The editorial also makes the claim that what Sony did was un-American. As the title says, Sony, "blew "The Interview." By making what Sony did seem un-American, they can strengthen the claim that Sony made the wrong decision. Sony just needed "a single screen to premiere the film and send the message that Sony was open for business" in order to show that terrorism can't beat out the American way. By showing the movie in just a single theater, would tell America and the world that America will not shake from foreign threats. As, "Patriotism demands: Show the movie and show it now."

TOW #13 (Editorial Article) Korean Air princess is a like a despot with her little kingdom

As a Korean Air plane was wheeling down a runway in JFK on December 5th, Korean Air vice president Cho Hyun-ah, also the daughter of the Korean Air CEO, ordered the plane to turn around and return to the airport. If there was a substantial reason for turning around, for example, an old man was having a heart attack or a young lady was about to have baby, there would be controversy surrounding this issue. However, Cho ordered the plane to turn over over the issue of macadamia nuts. It is Korean Air protocol that, in first class, macadamia nuts are served on plates, but the flight attendant served the vice president the nuts in a bag. She threw a tantrum and screamed at the head flight attendant and, ultimately, kicked the head flight attendant off the plane. The Hankyoreh, a website dedicated to editorials concerning Korean news, uses rationale and invective language to argue that the vice president of Korean air was absurd and despotic.

The Hankyoreh uses facts and states how not only was Cho extremely rude and inhumane in her treatment of the flight attendant, but she herself showed, "a shocking degree of arrogance and contempt of aviation law." Even as the vice president of a large company, she showed complete ignorance to her own workers. She also ordered a plane that was in motion to stop, turn around, and return to the airport. This delayed the flight by over 20 minutes and inconvenienced over 400 passengers. Using her authority, she usurped, "the authority of the caption on a whim," and then flew the plane without the head flight attendant which is a violation of aviation law. Although the protocol in Korean Air is that macadamia nuts be served on plates, the Korean Air vice president acted on unsubstantial impulse, and like a dictator, completely disregarded her own people and her own customers for her own selfish reasons, which a bag of macadamia nuts surely don't weigh up to.

Invective language also shows the extremity of the issue and just how selfish Cho was. The Hankyoreh uses phrases such as, "Cho’s behavior is an extreme case of entitlement that pushes the envelope of basic human courtesy," "maybe it’s just too much to expect people with money to act like decent human beings," and "her attempt to drag the captain into the debacle is the same kind of pathetic attempt to pass the buck that we have seen so many times before," giving the sense of Cho being stuck up, indecent, pathetic, and, shortly put, a sore loser. The Hankyoreh doesn't hesitate to criticize Cho which reinforces the absurdity of Cho's actions.

Cho and her beloved macadamia nuts

TOW #12 IRB Post: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

        How did Europeans dominate the globe, stretching their empires from the tip of South America to the islands of Polynesia? Why did the Europeans dominate the world? Why couldn't it have been the Africans or the Aztecs? Jared Diamond, a renown biologist and author, sought to answer these questions. In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond uses an anecdote and pictures to show that Europeans did not dominate the world through chance or through higher intellect, but through the environmental and geographical advantages the Europeans had.

       The entire book starts with "Yali's Question." Yali, a man from New Guinea working for independence from Australia a the time, met with Diamond. They discussed politics and civil issues until Yali posed the question, "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" (14) This simple question not only speaks to New Guinea but to every conquered population in the world. The fact that whites dominated the world was true. This idea was the inspiration for Guns, Germs, and Steel, and is the question posed throughout the entire book. Diamond answers this question by bringing it to three things: guns, germs, and steel. The environmental advantages the Europeans had were the reason they were such successful conquerors, and this hypothesis all started from a New Guinean man's question.

     Diamond also uses pictures in order to create a understanding of different cultures and explains things through visual rhetoric for easier digestion. The two most prominent types of pictures Diamond uses are pictures of different people from different cultures and pictures of the earth its human populations. By showing pictures of people, Diamond can allow an understanding of the different cultures ranging from a French president to an Aboriginal Australian tribe member to a Japanese emperor. The pictures of the earth are used to support and strengthen Diamond's argument that it was geographical reasons that Europeans dominated the world. By showing the placement of different civilizations and populations around the world, the reader can see the history taking place, often a much simpler and easier task than reading.

TOW #11 President Obama's Thursday Night Speech on Immigration

       On my way home from the NHS induction Thursday night, I turned on the radio and heard president Obama giving his speech on immigration. I thought to myself, 'this would be great TOW material," and I tuned in. I listened, not only as a citizen, but as an analyzer, and appreciated the rhetoric Obama used in his powerful speech. President Obama, using statistics, a logical counterargument, and a moving immigrant story, spoke to all Americans that he will fix the immigration system of America and protect the rights of immigrants, relieving them of deportation.
       After addressing the nation, Obama quickly moved on to the statistics of the situation in order to establish a basis in his argument. He recites the facts that there are ":more agents and technology deployed to secure our southern border than at anytime in our history," that "there was a brief spike in unaccompanied children being apprehended at our border, the number of such children is actually lower than it's been in nearly two years," and "overall the number of people trying to cross our border illegally is at its lowest level since the 1970s." Subsequently, he states, "those are the facts." This allows listeners to understand that these were absolute facts and it appeals to the logos of his argument. Listeners now know that there was change during Obama's presidency and that immigration reform wasn't in a state of paralysis, but it is important to make permanent change in the matter.
       Obama also excellently refutes the other side, which quells the opposing argument and builds his own. After Obama speak about his plan to allow more rights for immigrants, he immediately talks about "what it isn't." His plan "does not apply to anyone who has come to this country recently" or to anyone who might come to America illegally in the future," "it does not grant citizenship or the right to stay here permanently." Here, Obama seals off the possible holes in his argument that critics could say and disproves them. This makes Obama's argument stronger and less prone to disagreement.
        Near the end of his speech, Obama used the story of Astrid Silva, an immigrant success, to evoke the empathy for immigrants and show what an immigrant can do with their life in America. This girl moved to America at age 4 not knowing any English and "she caught up to other kids by reading newspapers and watching PBS." Her family was undocumented, so when her grandmother in Mexico, who Silva loved so dearly, passed away, Silva couldn't even attend her grandmother's funeral due to fear of deportation. "It was around that time she decided to begin advocating for herself and others like her. And today Astrid Silva is a college student working on her third degree." This powerful story shows 'the American dream' and what people can make of their lives in America, but due to the broken immigration system, a hardworking woman cannot even attend a family member's funeral. This appeals to the pathos of Obama's audience and humanizes the immigrant, creating the atmosphere for reform in immigration policy that Obama wishes to make.

     

TOW #10 (Visual Text Analysis) Why love one but eat the other?

      The highway is a great place for advertisers to send a message in the form of billboards. As drivers speed down the unchanging road, these large billboards can't help but grab drivers' attention. Usually, from my experience, most of these billboards are to sell products or tell us of an upcoming restaurant. However this billboard by the non-profit organization, Mercy for Animals, speaks for a more humanitarian cause, using cuteness and a simple layout to persuade people to be vegetarians.
       There is no doubt that the two animals on the left of the billboard are extremely cute. The large pictures of the piglet and the puppy elicit a strong emotional attachment to the billboard which allows the billboard to hook its audience and relay its message. A pink piglet with almond black eyes and a sad looking puppy with droopy ears can't help but quickly stir the feeling of drivers and bring out the occasional, "aw, how cute." The cuteness grabs the attention and moves on to its true purpose.
       Unlike some of the other visual texts I have analyzed, which require quite a bit of time to extract the purpose and devices, this billboard was simple, allowing the viewers to completely digest the message. Since drivers are at the most spending a couple of seconds on the billboard, it is necessary that the format is simple, and since Americans are bound to read things left to right because of the English language, there is a specific order to which the elements of the billboard are to be viewed. On the left are the two cute little animals and next to that is the rhetorical question, "why love one but eat the other?" Then the billboard moves on to the answer, "choose vegetarian." If you couldn't answer the question then it makes sense to choose vegetarian because why would you want to turn that cute little piglet into roasted suckling? Then on the very bottom is the logo of the organization, establishing the ethos in the matter. The simple format and the organized mixture of pathos, logos, and ethos allow the billboard to efficiently and effectively persuade its audience to go vegetarian.

TOW #9 "Obama can fight ISIS without bombs" by Sally Kohn

      The Middle East, always a region of conflict, is going through another reign of terror. ISIS, or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a group composed of radical Sunni Muslims who are willing to kill their Shia brothers and other ethnicities in Iraq and Syria in order to gain geographic and political power, are creating more chaos in the Middle East. I'm sure people have seen or heard of the beheading videos of American and British journalists that ISIS releases periodically. In response, Obama has stated in his prime-time address that he will strike ISIS down with "strength and resolve", meaning military might and airstrikes. But is this really the solution? CNN writer Sally Kohn thinks not. In her opinion article, "Obama can fight ISIS without bombs", Kohn uses persuasive counterarguments and a digestible structure of her article to say, as her title states, that ISIS should not be brought down with military might, but with more diplomatic solutions.

      Kohn starts the essay with the opposing side and consistently adds the voice of the other perspective of the issue throughout her article, but she quickly and persuasively refutes the opposing side's argument which strengthens her argument since she has already acknowledged the other side. The opposing side wants Obama to "call for more extensive strikes" and even start "an invasion of Iraq". She immediately says her argument that "fighting ISIS is the wrong course of action". She then states three points that support her argument. It's difficult to argue against a side that has already acknowledged the other side, pointed out it's flaws, and configured better solutions to the problem. 

    She also structures her article in a extremely simple and digestible way in which readers can easily extract the information, thus making it easier for readers to see and understand her point and be persuaded. After her introduction and the thesis, Kohn puts three reasons why fighting ISIS with military will not work, "1. U.S. intervention is what destabilized Iraq in the first place -- and more bombing will likely make Iraq less stable", "2. Airstrikes won't destroy radical ideology, they'll make it worse", and "3. There is no direct threat to the United States". She backs up each statement with rationale and then poses the question "If bombing isn't the solution, what is?" She answers her question with four solutions to the problem: "1. Cut access to guns and money", "2. Fix Iraq's political rifts", "3. Provide humanitarian assistance", and "4. Lead a truly international response". This structure is extremely simple and with the simplicity comes her power to change people's views and allow readers to understand her side that America cannot take militaristic approaches to ISIS.

                           Obama delivering his speech about his militaristic approach to ISIS

IRB #2 Intro Post "Guns, Germs, and Steel"

My house library is filled with great books, and one that stood out to me while browsing for a new IRB was Guns, Germs, and Steel. The book's by Jared Diamond, a professor of physiology at the UCLA School of Medicine. The overall message in the book is the reasons why Europeans were able to dominate the world, which were guns, germs, and steel. I remember watching the first episode of the documentary version of the book in history class back in 7th grade at my old school in Singapore, but that was just the first episode. I can't wait to read this book. I feel like this book is going to give me a new outlook on history and society.

TOW #8 (IRB POST) Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

      So I finally finished the book that I've wanted to read for so long, and I was not disappointed. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell gave me a new outlook on want it meant to be successful and the process of how to be successful. It disproved the myth that purely hardwork and ambition are the key to success. Undoubtedly, a person must have these traits, but it is the uncontrollable factors in life, the time period you were born in, your race, your culture, the people and opportunities that you encounter, that allow people to be the best. In the book, Gladwell uses extremely diverse examples and a personal story in the end to prove his argument that success comes from ambition, hardwork, and, ultimately, luck.

      The examples Gladwell uses in Outliers encompass all types of meanings of success and all types of people which allows him to establish a strong foundation to his argument. Gladwell uses Bill Gates, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Chris Langan, Joe Flom, Korean Air, The Beatles, Asian ability in math, and the KIPP program, ranging from Californian computer software to New York's major law firms and England's most popular band to the rice patties of Southern China. Gladwell provides a substantial amount of meat to his argument, which, especially with this wide range of examples, is extremely persuading and difficult to disprove.

    Gladwell concludes his book with an anecdote about his own family. He talks about his mother, a Jamaican woman who married a Canadian man. But in order to speak about his mother and her life, he talks about people from way before, his great-great-great grandfather who was an Irish immigrant to Jamaica. This Irish man took an interest in a black slave woman and had children with her, and the children came out to be less black. During Jamaica's period of slavery, slaves with lighter skin would be treated better and would do less labor. Due to this, all of Gladwell's predecessors were treated better and were higher up in the societal hierarchy. Then Gladwell talks about his grandfather, a man who loved books and knowledge, and his grandmother, a motivated woman who did whatever it took for her daughter's education. His mother came from this background and had him. Gladwell uses his own story to conclude the book with the fact that the idea that acts of chance, consequences, and opportunities affect someone's life is applicable not only to the few success stories of the world, but to himself and everyone.

Malcolm Gladwell

TOW #7(opinion article) "What We're Afraid to Say About Ebola" by Michael T. Olsterholm

     Any updated person knows that the world is on the verge of facing a pandemic of ebola. The ebola virus is transmitted through bodily fluids and causes high fever and severe internal bleeding. It is most prevalent currently in West Africa in countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia, but there are many things about ebola that the world doesn't know yet, especially it's potential to alter history. In "What We're Afraid to Say About Ebola", Michael T. Olsterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, uses possible outcomes of the ebola virus and an overall theme of fear to urge Americans to take action and control on the ebola outbreak and not let the ebola outbreak take control of us.

      Olsterholm hypothesizes possible situations that may arise if the ebola outbreak is treated that way it is treated now to allow his audience to recognize this future as unacceptable and create change since people know how ebola is currently devastating West Africa but not what ebola might do in the future. He states that the first situation, one that many have thought of already, is if the virus spreads to megacities around the world in developing nations. However another possibility that others might have considered, but too afraid to speak up about, is if the ebola virus mutates into an airborne disease. If this happened, the ebola virus would become a pandemic and destroy the world population. Olsterholm uses this cataclysmic end to have people realize that something has to be done and quickly before the virus gets out of hand.

     

Connected closely to Olsterholm's frightening, yet possible, futures of the world, a sense of fear is also created by the article in order to get people to take action. Not only do the possible futures discussed earlier scare, but Olsterholm uses alarming facts such as " health care workers have been infected with Ebola, and more than 120 have died", "Liberia has only 250 doctors left, for a population of four million" and the one that gets Olsterholm's American audience the most riled up is the fact that "if we wait for vaccines and new drugs to arrive to end the Ebola epidemic, instead of taking major action now, we risk the disease’s reaching from West Africa to our own backyards". The truth that it is very possible that ebola could reach America is spine chilling to many people, myself included, and can create the hysteria that might be needed to take the critical action that needs to be taken before ebola reaches us.

TOW #6 (Visual Text Analysis) DON'T TUNE OUT

I know from personal experience that teenagers like to walk around with headphones in our ears. We get to relax to our favorite jam and block out the world while looking cool at the same time. I'm often walking around school plugged into my music, and it's not too dangerous. However, when crossing roads or walking on the sidewalks, it's a different story. This advertisement by the Pedestrian Council of Australia urges people to be more aware of the surrounding traffic by using a specific character in the advertisement and powerful symbolism.

The girl on the face of the advertisement was not arbitrarily chosen. The Pedestrian Council of Australia chose a specific person, a young and beautiful women, in order to evoke the emotion of its audience. If the person on the road was a grungy man in a ripped and nasty sweatshirt with a green mohawk and a Mike Tyson tattoo on his face, I don't think many people will feel much sympathy for that man. Nothing against those kind of people, but that's society. But when the subject is a pretty, young women, it appeals to the aesthetic element of the advertisement. The women is wearing a clean white shirt, bringing the idea of purity. People will feel sympathy and uneasiness when this sort of character is lying on the streets, further contributing to the Pedestrian Council of Australia's purpose.

In addition, the girl seems to have earphones on. The audience instantly understands the message; this girl must have had earphones on while she was on the streets and got hit by a car. That in itself is somewhat powerful, but the impact of the entire advertisement can be seen with closer look of the earphones. Those are no earphones. That's blood. Crimson red blood is streaming down the girls neck, symbolizing earphones. With that, the audience is hit with a wave of shock and reality that this girl is most likely dead. The shape of the blood reminds the audience that earphones can cause this type of death and discourages use of them on the streets.

The use of a beautiful women and the shape of the blood as earphones allows this advertisement to drive its audience with it's message that people need to be aware of their surroundings, especially in a place where traffic may end your life. It discourages the use of earphones and steers people into the proper direction of safety.

TOW #5 (NonFiction) "Hong Kong – betrayed by China. And abandoned by the British" by Anson Chan

        Hong Kong is currently going through a turning point in its history. Back in 1984, the UK and China made a treaty to give Hong Kong back to the Chinese in 1997 after 150 years of British rule, creating a capitalist state within a communist nation, both side making promises to maintain Hong Kong's way of life and freedom. However, ever since Hong Kong was in Chinese control, China has had control on the choice of leader, or chief executive, in Hong Kong without any say by the Hong Kong public. China pre-screens every candidate and only those that the Chinese government approves are allowed to run fort the position. With a new generation of worldly, connected people, the idea of democracy is spreading like fire, and this past week, many pro-democracy demonstrators have been, so far, peacefully rallying against this "fake" democracy. However, neither China nor Britain has stepped in to face the problem. In her opinion article, "Hong Kong – betrayed by China. And abandoned by the British", Anson Chan uses a compelling ethos and an effective counter-argument to argue that China and Britain need to take action in Hong Kong's situation and follow through with the promises they made to Hong Kong.

     The most prominent appeal in the article is the appeal to ethos. Anson Chan was the chief secretary in both the British colonial government before from 1993 to 1997 and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government under the Chinese rule from 1997 to 2001. An advocate for democracy in Hong Kong even after her civil service she is a public activist in the road to democracy. Since Chan has served in the Hong Kong before and after Chinese rule, she has the knowledge and experience of both sides. She knows the pros and cons of Chinese rule and British rule and has incredible credibility when speaking of this topic. Knowing who Anson Chan is and her accomplishments allow readers of the article to seriously consider her argument.

    Connected to her past as the chief secretary of the British colonial government and the Chinese government, Chan also has the ability to consider the other side and their motives, yet effectively counter it with a more powerful argument. "If people are fearful of their future, they are more likely to protest. And of course the Chinese leadership worries about protests spreading. In this light, they might view Hong Kong as an agent of change. So I understand mainland Chinese fears" (Chan). Here, Chan considers what the Chinese are doing and why their actions are justified. They see Hong Kong as the catalyst to a revolution that they don't want to happen. Chan understands this. However, "if they are allowed to walk away from their commitments under an international treaty, then it doesn't say very much for China's commitment to the rest of the world" (Chan). The Chinese promised to protect Hong Kong way of life, yet they haven't followed through with these fixed elections. For Chan, an international promise and commitment that you made to yourself and the rest of the world is of much more importance than the fear of a non-existant revolution. Chan further proves her point that China must follow the promise to Hong Kong instead of worrying about its own problems with the effective counter argument.

   Both her great credibility and her wide perspective allow Chan to argue her point that the promise between China and Britain must be kept and both must follow it.  Sometimes in opinion papers, we don't get to see the whole picture, both sides of the story, just one biased argument that leaves the reader stunned but somewhat persuaded. But Chan has the ability to overview the entire situation, analyzing the actions and motives of the entirety, and then come to a sound conclusion that makes sense, both to herself and the reader.

TOW #4 Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell IRB

      Why do some people succeed far more than others? How are the Beatles so amazing? How did Bill Gates get so rich? Why are Asians so good at math? What makes a star athlete? The average person often questions these mysteries of life, but he probably won't ever completely answer that list of spontaneous yet extremely thought provoking questions. Many people assume that successes are innately talented and when they have a fiery ambition, that's where the success is born. Malcolm Gladwell, a renown bestselling non-fiction writer whose books explore psychology and sociology, explains that this is not the case. In Outliers, Gladwell, using a powerful appeal to logos and interesting narratives, effectively argues that the story of success is created from what surrounds a person, his family, his environment, or even his date of birth, simply put, luck, in order to allow readers to see success in a new perspective.

       The largest piece in Outliers was the appeal to logos: facts, quotes, observations, and statistics. Using his credibility as an established author on this topic, Gladwell analyzes the factual information he acquired into his hypothesis. He uses charts and tables all in a structure that is pleasing to the eye. It adds simplicity to the ocean of information and allows the reader to take Gladwell's argument seriously.

       Outliers is a non fiction book about sociology and the makings of success, not the everyday read for the average skimmer. What allows this book to connect to the general public is its use of narratives. The book itself starts out with a narrative about an "outlier" town called Roseto, not only was the narrative interesting, but it introduced the reader to the essence of Outliers. Gladwell also gives narratives, in a story-telling fashion, of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, the Beatles, and J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the scientists of the Manhattan Project. These narratives make the book seem like a series of biographies, making reading, at face value, a boring book about human behavior much more interesting.

     Both the appeal to logos and the effective use of narratives give Outliers a powerful argument that persuades the audience into pondering about this new idea of success. It gives readers the information they need and the stories they desire, making this non-fiction book about success truly successful.

TOW #3 Visual Text Analysis

    The World Wildlife Fund is always coming up with interesting and powerful advertisements, and this is just one of the many. The entire advertisement is an image of an open, green, perfect-for-golfing field and a golfer in his finishing motion. Everything seems normal at a glance, but a closer look shows that the golfer is not swinging a golf club but an axe. 

        At once I understood what this meant. Golf courses require flat surfaces, and for that reason many trees are chopped down for a single course. The purpose of the advertisement is very specific though. The WWF is not trying to say that golf is a habitat-destroying sport and should be totally banned. On the bottom of the advertisement it says, "Building a single golf course puts thousands of trees at stake. However in Southern Turkey, they are planning to build several courses simultaneously. Take action. Help us stop them." The WWF's true purpose is to persuade the general public to help them stop the simultaneous building of golf courses in Southern Turkey, which they achieve effectively

       With the trademark logo of the panda in the bottom left hand corner, the image establishes an automatic ethos without much explaining. The audience knows that the panda symbolizes the WWF and that the advertisement is going to have to do with the environment. People will take the advertisement seriously through that credibility, and the WWF will be able to deliver its message more powerfully.

     The WWF also uses a very effective metaphor by saying in font slightly bigger than it's message, "The par: 200,000 trees." In golf, the par signifies the number of strokes an expert golfer is expected to take on an entire course. How many is the par on this hole? A whole 200,000 trees. The WWF is comparing the standard of the golf course to the number of trees that the golf course took down. Through this, the WWF can indirectly lay out its logos and connect the whole thing back to golf.

     This advertisement has quite a bit of irony as well. To many people, myself included, golf is a sport where one can become a part of nature. The golf course is a sacred seclusion within a chaotic society that seems untouched by human hands. As a golfer myself, I love the natural part about golf; ironically, a golf course is created artificially and requires the destruction of true nature. This irony makes the message even more powerful and can bring people to the WWF's purpose to bring a stop to the simultaneously building of golf courses in Southern Turkey.

IRB Introduction: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

For my first IRB, I chose Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. My father told me about it and that I should read it. I never had the motivation to read it, but once again, APELC is making me do new things. I had a vague idea that it would be interesting, but after reading the short hook on Amazon, I think I'm going to like this book a lot. It explains what makes successful people successful and what makes them the "outliers"; but honestly, I'm really excited to read the part about what makes Asians so smart. 

TOW #2 Ray Rice, Ray Lewis, and the Absurdity of the NFL and its Law Breakers by Phil Mushnick

"Shocking Video!!!" These are the words New York Post sportswriter Phil Mushnick exclaimed in his most recent column, "Ray Rice, Ray Lewis and the Absurdity of NFL Law Breakers". By those words, any football fan or person who watches the news knows that Mushnick is referring to the recently exposed video of Ray Rice, the Baltimore Raven's renown runningback, brutally punching his at-the-time fiance. However, what's interesting about this article is that it doesn't hover over the topic of Ray Rice, a highly debated and discussed topic at this moment, but it focuses on the NFL and society's reactions to these "troublemakers". Mushnick effectively conveyed the idea to his audience, those who follow the NFL, that the NFL and society celebrates and praises its "troublemakers" to the extend that the NFL is becoming a less and less dignified organization.

Now, if Mushnick based his claim purely on Ray Rice's situation, it would be baseless because the NFL is not praising Ray Rice; in fact, the Ravens just cut him and the NFL put an indefinite suspension on him. However, for Mushnick, Rice was just the inspiration, and introduction, to his position. Mushnick seamlessly transitions into the "forgotten" past of the NFL and reminds his audience of Ray Lewis', Raven's MVP linebacker that retired last year, very similar situation. In 2000, Lewis was charged of murder of two men through stabbing. He served one year under probation and was fined 250,000. 

What Mushnick thinks is absurd is that Lewis is now an ESPN commentator and that the Ravens have put a statue of Lewis in front of their stadium. It was as if the whole world forgot about his past. Also, when Lewis was talking about the Rice situation, Mushnick responded by saying, "So Ray Lewis, now with ESPN and with six children from four women, appears on national TV to provide his sage opinion on matters of social responsibility and comportment by NFL players." Mushnick lets his audience deduce that the world is somewhat backwards when those, "who should be disqualified are jumped to the front of the “qualified” line".

What makes Mushnick's delivery even more effective is his great tone and spread of sarcasm. As a sportswriter, he is ought to know much about football and the NFL, and as he speaks, its easy to hear the passion. I would compare his tone to the tone that someone has when something ridiculous happens to him and he doesn't know how to respond to it, a combination of occasional bursts of anger and occasional laughs of disbelief. This contributes to his pathos, for his audience can understand the passion that people who follow football have and how sometimes, the things the NFL does can drive one crazy.

the Raven's two "troublemakers"

http://nypost.com/2014/09/11/ray-rice-just-latest-in-parade-of-nfl-law-breakers/

TOW #1 How To Say Nothing In 500 Words by Paul Roberts

This very entry may be an example of it, but I will try my best to refrain from it. The average student, myself included, uses a conglomeration of useless words that put, "a little meat on the bones" (Roberts 55) of the essay he writes. The author of "How to Say Nothing in 500 Words", Paul Roberts, an accomplished English linguist and textbook writer, shows how ranting on and on about nonsense actually is a harmful tactic in essay writing and teaches the reader how to abstain from it.

He directs his talk to students, generally those of higher education, since students are constantly writing essays as assignments, and it isn't rare to see an assignment with an enormous minimum word count. Even though Roberts wrote this in 1958, the basic habits of an essay-writing-student has not changed in the last 60 years. Personally, instead of saying, "I'm writing a TOW right now," I can easily expand this statement into, "Currently, at this moment, a Text of the Week is something that I am writing." Instantly, I more than doubled the amount of words I used and got much closer to the required word count, however large it may be. Roberts wants this habit to stop: it makes it harder for the reader, these kind of essays are almost always weak in content, and the essay will be extremely dull.

Roberts opens with an anecdote that portrays what saying nothing in 500 words looks like in real life, the average student that has to write a 500 word essay in three days about college football, a topic that does not interest him at all. He regurgitates what little information he knows about college football and expands what little he has to say into 500 words using hollow filler words.

This anecdote reminded me so much of myself, and I thought, "What could I do to stop this unattractive habit?" As this thought lingered in my head, he immediately supplied me with techniques to become a better writer that doesn't rely on the acquired ability to elongate meaningless sentences.

His strategy to connect the reader to the story he created allows an instant attraction to the text and a higher possibility of delivering his purpose successfully, a purpose that now I carry. After reading "How to Say Nothing in 500 Words" I made a sacred promise to myself that I will discontinue my nasty habit and follow the guidelines Roberts advised. I hope this is something that will be shown in all my work from here on out, not only in APELC, but within every message I deliver.

"meat on the bone"

The Figure a Poem Makes

Poetry has been one of man's earliest form of art and entertainment, recited by the Ancient Chinese, the Greeks, and William Shakespeare. Enticed by its beauty and elegance, man has always been attracted to poetry. In The Figure a Poem Makes, Robert Frost makes the connection between poetry and the many aspects of life. Frost, a highly regarded American poet, dedicated his life to poetry, for he believed that poetry could be explained as life itself.

This essay he wrote was the preface of his collection of poems, and it is understandable why he writes this as his preface. He wants his audience to experience poetry different from others. He explains poetry as a figure, a rise and fall, "The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom" (177). He connects poetry to love, it starts out in happiness and pure ecstasy, and when it ends, it provides wisdom.

Every poem is different, not because of the type of rhetorical devices it uses, or the style it is written in, but because of the meaning and the message it delivers, the end product it gives the reader. Frost states, "like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting" (178) The poem is not brought into the world entirely by the poet, all the poet does is spark it, and then the poet follows the poem in its creation. These metaphors that Frost uses allows the audience to mentally picture the figure of a poem. Something that seamlessly flows and always has a feel of originality. "Originality and initiative are what I ask for my country" (178). What Frost wants is his country to maintain the same figure as poetry. As said before, to Frost, poetry can be compared to life itself, and he wishes his readers to live life as a poem: from rise to fall, from ice on a hot stove to water, from delight to wisdom. "Read it a hundred times: it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance" (178). These beautiful metaphors that Frost utilizes allows the reader to imagine poetry. He wants his readers to live life as a poem, read it a hundred times but it will forever keep its freshness; therefore, we should live life like we are living it hundred times and since we live life like a poem, we will never get tired of it.


"Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting."--Robert Frost

The Future is Now

Ever since man was born, technology has continued to evolve. In 1945, the whole world believed that man had reached it's fullest technological potential with the explosion of the two atomic bombs in Japan. People were devastated by the destructive power of the two bombs and asked, "what has this world come to?" Has man's technology evolved so much that we can no longer control the power we created? Katherine Anne Porter addresses this issue in the short essay "The Future is Now".

Porter, a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist, wrote this essay in 1950, five years after the first atomic bomb, at the age of 60. She was born in a time when the industrial revolution was beginning to take off; technology was not something new to her. She lived through two world wars and understood the death toll, the chaos, and the terror war can create, providing herself with an incredible ethos. She realized that war was what caused massive jumps in technology, "bows and arrows, stone cannon balls, gunpowder, flintlocks, pistols, the dumdum bullet, the Maxim silencer, the machine gun, poison gas, armored tanks, and on and on to the grand climax- if it should prove to be - of the experiment on Hiroshima" (197).

Society was beginning to believe that it has come too far. Technology has been created that shouldn't have been, and it is too far into the future. Yet, Porter quotes what one of her apprentice authors said, "the future is now" (195). She states that, "the future does arrive every day and it is all we have, from one second to the next" (195). People were angry and disturbed at the fact that a single bomb was able to kill millions instantly, but Porter argues, "I fail to see why it is more criminal to kill a few thousand persons in one instant than it is to kill the same number slowly over a given stretch of time" (198)

Throughout time, man has been killing people by the millions using the weapons he created. The only thing that changed is that the killing has become quicker and more efficient. She wishes that people do not start to curse the technology that they created, for technology will evolve as long as man commands it. She points out that the human race is better off evolving its technology than eating raw meat and living like cavemen.  Undoubtedly, killing is never justifiable, but as Porter says, "what we have is a world not on the verge of flying apart, but an uncreated one" (198). In an growing and evolving world, mistakes are bound to be made in the form of war, death, and destruction. Society and technology has not yet been perfected, but it is bound to be, in the future, which is now.

Uncontrollable technology at its finest

Sex Ex Machina

As technology advances, machines are becoming a part of everyone's daily life. There is no escape from the ever present machinery that powers society. However, there are many people that are afraid of machines, be it fear, doubt, or trauma. In "Sex Ex Machina", James Thurber, a renown American cartoonist and humorist, interestingly connects the parallels betweens machines and sex.

He mentions that many "attribute the whole menace of the machine to sex" (153). This essay was written for the The New Yorker, a magazine company, in 1937, a time of great technological evolution. This essay probably was a great illustrator of the time period he was living in. Machines were becoming more larger, stronger, and more efficient. This sudden change probably frightened many people that weren't used to it; thus, prompting Thurber to address this issue.

 Thurber's audience is most likely people that are apprehensive about machinery, those who still don't quite understand how machines work. Thurber's purpose is to inform his audience that this fear that they have of machines is natural, and he achieves it quite well. He gives interesting anecdotes about his own personal life and of his friends and their experiences with machines. He himself is somewhat scared of all these new machines for he, "discerned only a natural caution in a world made up of gadgets that whir and whine and whiz and shriek and sometimes explode" (157). He also mentioned a friend that, "developed a fear of automobiles, trains, and every other kind of vehicle that was not pulled by a horse" (158) because he fell off of a motor boat once and had a traumatic experience. Thurber states that, "I do not regard that as neurotic, either, but only sensible" (158). He understands that machines intimidate many people, just as sex intimidates many people.

Thurber has a great literary voice that has a mix of calmness and irony that allows understanding the purpose easier and makes his writing much more enjoyable. His purpose can also reach out to people today. In his time period, the machines that frightened people were large, clamorous automobiles; however, in this time period, the machines that people tend to fear are smartphones and computers. I know of many people who have difficulties navigating their computers and doing simple computer operations, and in the end, they just quit saying that technology isn't their thing. What's amazing is that Thurber's topic and purpose transcends time and shows the basis of human nature.

The Fear of Machines