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.