*profanity* i think i am missing a blog

So, I think I am missing a blog. I think there was supposed to be one more 'blog about progress blog' than I have here. So, here is an update on my progress.
I decided, not to widen my topic, but to touch on the idea that media pushes people into what looks good in fashion ass well, to bring my point about body image closer to home. Some people do not think they are overweight but might think that the shirt they are trying on makes them look fat. Why do they think they look fat if they know they do not? It is the media that has told them that that shirt is unattractive.
And, considering it is Tuesday, I have finished my paper, and feel fairly good about it. I realized I forgot my bibliography, but its all good because I got it to LaMags.

Chat with LaMags, about how she is tight

Okay, so the chat wasn't about how LaMags is tight, but she is. The chat was about how I can't seem to find many people who disagree with me. There are some that say that there are other factors that contribute to body modifications, but also agree that the media is a contributing factor.
In this insightful chat, we talked about how the media influences people in fashion and what is 'cool'. I started to think that maybe I should widen my topic and talk about how the media infuences girls as people, and their roles in society, how they should look fashion wise, as well as body image.




ps. lamags can I do that?

don't make the media my scapegoat?

Today the article I read was the opposite view that I hold. This article said that girls and even boys, do not develop eating disorders because of the media. They say that there are many other factors that lead to this. They do say, however, that the media can make people feel badly about their self image. The main point of the article was that the girls that are being treated for eating disorders have something else in their lives that are contributing to it. At the end of the article, there were short paragraphs from different kids ages 15 and 16, they all agreed that there was pressure in the media to be thin, and to look like the models.


see? even in an Anti article they agree with me.

dear media, please stop being one sided

So, my dear friends, I just read an article online about the media's effect on girls and body image. I article explained about how a child develops and how children, from the time that they are born start to base what they should look like by the way people react to them. It then says the as a child grows older and becomes aware of what societies standards of the perfect body are, they start to want to be like that.
The article gave some good stats to help my argument, 40% of 9 and 10 year old girls that were surveyed, had tried to lose weight. What child needs that pressure? The time that a girl spends watching TV and movies, has a direct correlation with how the girl feels about her body image. Reading magazines for teen girls or women also correlated with body dissatisfaction for girls.

The article also had another part to it about gender roles in the media and how the media presents girls as obsessed with boys, pink, shopping, clothes, dating, and other stereotypical girl qualities. The media uses these qualities to try to relate to girls. This even though it is a different topic, helps my argument because it shows how the media influences girls in other ways besides their body image.

progress.... slowly is better than standing still

So the progress is coming, but slowly. I have decided that I am going to do my paper on body image and how it leads to plastic surgery and other body modifications. I think the way I am going to approach it is tlaking about body image in the media and how it affects young girls, (or women in general) and then talk about plastic surgery as an option, and if it should be allowed/ legal/ easy to get done/ able to get done when under 18 even with parental consent. I will have to do more research to be able to decide which of these I will focus on.

I think the main reason that I want to do this topic, besides the fact that I will be able to gather a lot of research, is that I am a girl of the age that the media is targeting. (shocking I know) The media and advertising prey on the insucurities of teenage girls to sell their products or to get them to watch their shows. The paper will not have apathy if I talk about this because it affects me.

reasonable proposals lead to reasonable answers

The first proposal argument at the end of chapter 15, about hosts at this restaurant getting paid better with tips is a good argument in my opinion. Laurel, the author, used to be a host at one of these restaurants and knows what it feels like to be an under appreciated and under paid hostess. She is able to gain her credibility because she used to be one, and she also has worked at other restaurants. Her proposal of having the servers pay 1% of their tips, is a good one, and would work because it works in other restaurants. It must work because others do it.
Her proposal is “doable” because it does not hurt the sever any, and it helps the hosts. When the hosts are happy, they are more likely to do a better job and the turnover rate would be lower. Having a lower turnover rate will make them more competitive with surrounding restaurants, which would ultimately make them more money. It’s a good argument because how can the company turn an idea down if it will make them more money without any cost to them?

ohh the choices... what to do?

So, I am really having a hard time thinking of things I am truly interested in. I thought it would be easy to think up a problem, but all the things I come up with would have to have huge research projects on how to fix the problems. And I don't just mean that I would have to do a lot of research, I mean I would basically have to so some random chemistry or something to solve these problems. Therefore, knowing these were impossible problems for an English assignment, I decided to think on a smaller scale. The topics I came up with were:

The deterioration of the public school system
choice of school

Teen pregnancy rates
sex education

High school dropout rates
public vs private

body image in the media
self mutation
plastic surgery

Now, you can see that these are not small problems... think about what my other topic were. haha

i don't understand ∴ i hate

Ellis’s story does offer a credible way to overcome this problem of racism and the misunderstanding of other races. Ellis’s story is credible because it is his own story that is being told. These are his words that he is speaking about his life, and the truth about his life. The fact that the ‘solution’ he is proposing is actually what happens to him, makes it credible. He is also truthful about what has happened to him. He talks about what it was like when he was a Klansmen and his progression into not only his coexistence with blacks, but his friendships he has man with many black people. By showing his progression and knowing his background it shows us that it did work at least once which makes it more credible that just an idea.
This idea did work at least once for C.P. Ellis, but the reason Ellis changed was not easy. He was a militant Klansmen and he was asked to represent them as a group. He had to be able to realize that he was being used so that the government would stay in control and neither the Klan nor the black people would be in charge. He was asked to work with a black woman. He didn’t like the idea, but he knew that by working with her he might be able to get his ideas into the school board. He said he didn’t look at her as a person, and didn’t know her until he realized that they had similar problems, ideas, and lives. He realized that they weren’t so different.
Unless someone goes through this process its doubtful that people would realize they had similarities with someone that they hate. They would have to be put into a similar situation as Ellis to realize these similarities. This would be hard to do on a large scale because of the fact that people are not the same and this one way will not work for everyone.

mainstreamness and normalness

Yoshino says that “the mainstream is a myth” because no one is normal. He is saying that because there isn’t really a ‘normal’ person, there is no mainstream. His reasoning is that it is not normal to be normal.
I think that his reasoning is very persuasive even though its not a ton of reasons backing up this idea, I think that it is true that if someone is truly ‘normal’ that people view that as not normal, but people must cover to seem normal. This does mean that being mainstream is a myth. You can’t be mainstream because no one is normal. Being mainstream means being in the majority. The majority is not just of one thing. The people have to be the same in every way. This cannot happen, therefore there is no majority and then there can’t be a mainstream.

a true friendship is sacred

Linda finally gets her freedom because her “owners” the Dodges are in need of money and her great friend and employer decides to buy her freedom for her. Linda tells her that she does not want her freedom bought. That was just being like sold to a new owner. It was still slavery even if the master was a kind woman and friend. Mrs. Bruce decides to buy her anyway because she wants Linda to be a free woman, and do whatever she wants without having to look over her shoulder all of the time and wonder if any of the people around her were Mr. Dodge getting ready to capture her or her children.
Linda isn’t sure that she wants her freedom bought, but she says that after it is done she feels a huge weight being lifted off her shoulders. She now doesn’t have that constant worry of someone coming to capture her or her children. She was free. Mrs. Bruce says to her that she had no intentions of actually owning her; she wanted Linda to be truly free. For this, Linda is the most grateful she has ever been and she says that the word ‘friend’ is overused, but when she uses it to speak about Mrs. Bruce, it is sacred.

the right thing is never the easy thing

“I replied, ‘ I will never go there. In a few months I shall be a mother.’ He stood without a work. I thought I should be happy in my triumph over him. But now that the truth was out, and my relatives would hear of it, I felt wretched. Humble as were their circumstances, they had pride in my good character. Now, how could I look them in the face? My self-respect was gone! I had resolved that I would be virtuous, though I was a slave. I has said, ‘Let the storm beat! I will brave it till I die.’ And now, how humiliated I felt!”

This passage uses the honesty of Jacobs that we have been talking about. This honesty does actually establish her credibility.
She does this by telling you why she decides to let herself get pregnant by Mr. Sands, and then the excitement and the good feeling of revenge she thought she would have when she told him. Then she talks about how she had always vowed to be virtuous and now she had betrayed herself by deciding to do this for her freedom. She now knows that her family will find out and now they will be disappointed in her because she was always a good person with good character and now she was having a baby with a random man from town. You can feel her humility because you know that she did something for a good reason but because of what she had to do she is now going to be looked down upon. You can really understand her struggle between what and what not to do.

Swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is truth and not fiction because the author, Harriet Jacobs wants it to be a completely truthful story. This is important because that means that she is not adding to the story to make people feel sorry for her or to make people believe that slavery was bad. She just wanted people to know what it was truly like being a slave. She says in her introduction that she doesn’t want to tell anything that isn’t true because she wants people to know the truth. She doesn’t want people to know the fairytale version of the story, she wants them to know the real story.
The editor doesn’t clean it up in terms of language or content because she understands the point of Jacobs story, she knows its about exposing the truth and by changing the story in anyway either by the content or even by the way that it is told, the story is no longer the truth. The editor talks in her introduction that she knows that Jacobs is not writing this just so that people feel sorry for her and other slaves, she says that she is writing it just so that the truth is out there for anyone who wants to listen.
Jacobs talks about how she changed the names in the story not to keep her identity secret but to keep the people around her safe. She cares about her family and wants them to be safe even if she is not. She puts others before herself which also shows how the book is the truth rather than a figment of her imagination,

Independence Day - the freedom = one passionate former slave

Fredrick Douglass is saying in “What is the Fourth of July to the Negro,” that he cannot talk to these abolitionists about freedom, and the fourth of July because he as a black man is not free. He cannot vote, or do anything that I white man can. He has no real rights. If a slave happened to be set free, they would have no rights and not be able to survive in a world that thinks of them as inferior.

The way that Douglass refers to logos, is he talks to them in a manner that makes his audience feel almost stupid and shameful. That they could possibly think that he would or could talk about the Fourth of July as a black former slave. He uses an appeal to ethos by using the lists of things that black people can’t be because they aren’t given the chance to. He talks about how he can’t be all of these things because he is a black former slave. He uses an appeal to pathos by using “you” he talks to them as if they are the reason for all of the things that he talks about. He wants them to know that even being abolitionists it doesn’t mean that you are exempt from the people who make it harder for black people to succeed. Douglass uses the three rhetorical devices very well and uses them both subtly and clearly, which is a good balance and gets the point across better.

socialization by surroundings

The socialization process is that you learn what you know from the people that you interact with everyday. You pick up values and create your personality based on the people that influence you. Your friends, parents, peers, teachers, anyone that you interact with, gives you a part of who you are. Its not that you become like them always, sometimes its that you don’t want to be like them, but the people around you socialize you.

I believe that prejudices as well as many other beliefs are instilled in this way. Your parents teach you what they believe and you grow up thinking that that is the right way. Then you get old enough to think for yourself and you listen to other people’s ideas and you pick and choose and combine beliefs until they make sense to you. You learn things from people around you whether you want to or not. These things are what make up you and your personality.

The greatest founding father? or greatest hypocrite

In History and in this picture it portrays Thomas Jefferson as an abolitionist and a good leader. History portrays Jefferson as a leader that does whatever is best for his country and does what he thinks it right. We are taught that Jefferson was this abolitionist that wanted to free the slaves and give equal rights to them. From history class, I know that he wanted to add the abolishing of slavery to the Constitution originally, but knew that it wouldn’t get passed with something so radical in it. He was also a slave owner, even though it was an economic move, and they were not set free until his death.

The picture shows Jefferson’s decedents being a mix of races, both black and white. This also makes you think that Jefferson was all for interracial marriages. You think that he would be proud that his decedents were interracial. When you read Notes on the State of Virginia, you see that Jefferson gears his writing towards his audience. He says that black slaves are inferior and are made to do the work on plantations, because they are athletic, and have the endurance to work all day. He establishes that they are different and that they are so different that they shouldn’t be intermixed with white people, people like him. He knows that slavery is not right, and wants the them to be free, but he doesn’t want them to be free where they can intermarry with whites. He wants them to have their own colony somewhere, so they can be themselves and be free, just far enough away from the whites as to not interfere.

The unattainable dream

Cora Tucker is a black woman, civil rights activist, in a Southern community that is resistant to change and her ideas. Willy Loman is a man with high hopes for himself and his family and he cant attain them because he doesn’t have a real sense of reality. Tucker does have this sense of reality and knows that she can’t change the town in a day. She knows she can only do it a little at a time. Willy, thinks that he can just get everything done in life by being well liked. He thinks that if he is well liked everything else will fall into place and he will be successful as he once was in the past.

The reason that Tucker succeeds in life is because she sets attainable goals. She does one little thing at a time and knows that things just don’t happen overnight. She sets each goal and creates a plan to get it done, and then moves onto the next one. Willy, on the other hand, is not like this and has only one goal in life to be well liked. He can never attain this goal of being well liked and success because it is bigger than him. Because he can’t attain this dream he eventually cracks and can’t take it anymore. If he would have set attainable goals, that might not have happened.

well liked or success?

Willy Loman’s idea of success is being “well liked.” He thinks that when you are well liked that you are successful. Having people know who you are and getting by on how much you are liked is Willy’s idea of success. He used to be a good salesman because people knew who he was and would buy from him just because his name was known. Now that many of his buyers aren’t around, he isn’t “well liked” because he no longer has all of those contacts that keep him successful. He relies on this because he thinks this is what success is. He pushes this idea onto his family. They now don’t know what else to believe and think that they must be well liked too, and then they will be successful. When they move away, they learn that this is not a reality and learn that they have to do things for themselves and cant get by on being well liked.

Willy’s idea of individual opportunity is doing your best to get people to like you. He pushes his son Biff to be this football star and when he struggles in school, he tells his son to cheat off of his smart friend. He doesn’t think this is wrong because Bernard isn’t really well liked, and he isn’t going to go anywhere in life anyway. Biff has a chance because everyone in town loves him, he is well liked, which is all that Willy wants for himself and his sons.

posse ≠ clique

On Wednesday, Maggie, did her presentation on The Posse Foundation. I just thought this was a really interesting organization. It’s interesting because it doesn’t help a large amount of people. It helps about ten kids at a time, make it through high school, and go on to college together. The thing about it though, its effective. These kids that they help really do go on to get good jobs, after they get into a good college and do well no only academically but extracurricularly as well. I liked that she brought up that these kids aren’t brought up together to become a clique, but to be a support system. I think that’s probably why this organization actually works. Support systems help people attain things they wouldn’t think they could otherwise.

Goodwill good clothes, good prices, good idea....

Alex Meregaglia went first in our presentations on Tuesday. He just wanted to get it over with, but going first is a big deal.
Alex’s presentation of Goodwill was really good. He explained the background of Goodwill, and their services. He told us how we could help in “real life” as well as donating with our donor bucks. I personally thought he was very persuasive, and you could tell he knew his facts. He used an appeal to ethos with all of his stats, and an appeal to pathos with the success story. I also like that he picked Goodwill because it helps people in more ways than just giving them items. They help give job training, and skills to help them find jobs for themselves. Goodwill also sets their users up with job interviews if they need assistance finding a job to interview for too. Then of course all of the Good will stores that you can buy anything that may be needed for a low cost.
I think that the organization was strong to begin with, and Alex’s presentation made it even stronger.

I think I can, I think I can

Emerson believes that you become self sufficient and successful when you become self- trusted. His ideas are that when you believe in yourself, and think that you can do something, you will be able to attain it. If you think about failure you will fail, but if you think about what you know you can do, and what you are capable of, you are more likely to succeed at more things than before. If you don’t believe in yourself, then who will? Of course there is always someone who cares about you, but does that person who cares also believe in you? Does the fact that they care mean that they automatically believe in you. With Emerson’s ideas, this doesn’t matter. You don’t have to rely on others to believe in you, you have to believe in yourself.

I do agree with Emerson and his idea of self- trust. I think that there isn’t always going to be someone there for you, and you have to help yourself and have faith that you will succeed. I think that believing that you can do it is a big part of succeeding. I also think that just doing this isn’t enough. Its not this easy to just believe and you succeed. It all still boils down to luck and timing and what you are capable of. The believing in yourself just gives you an advantage at finding those moments and getting the timing right.

Noble of Indiana

Noble of Indiana is a non-profit organization that provides people with developmental disabilities with training and eventually jobs, to make them successful and contributing members of society.
They also help children with disabilities and their families with therapy sessions.

Approximately 400 people with disabilities work in the community through our School-to-Work and employment services.
Individuals hired through Supported Employment average 3½ years in their jobs.
We partner with over 150 organizations and employers to open opportunities for people with disabilities.>
- noble website

Noble helps children with mental disabilities, by teaching them with new innovative ways that help children with developmental delays. They also help inform the parents as to what is going on with their children and how to help.
Noble of Indiana partners with Noble Industries, to create jobs for the developmentally disabled people who have now been trained in a job. Noble also sets about adult days, where developmentally disabled adults come and go to classes that teach them skills that will help them in the world.

Isn't it dead yet?

The only way to really bury a myth is to expose it to everyone. You have to prove that it is only a myth to everyone. As long as one person believes it, it is still alive. Dalton talks about the four messages that Alger sends in his writings. Two of the four are relating to race. Alger says that even if you are black, you can just push passed that, and that there are no racial differences. He writes that there are no racial issues to really overcome, and that even if there were, you can just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and everything will be ok.
The way a myth is challenged is by people who know the reality and having them tell personal experiences to debunk the rumor. The only way to get rid of the idea is to prove it wrong. Its like the TV show Myth Busters. They find random myths and then they test them to either prove or disprove them. The way that you test a myth like Alger’s is to try to live like he says you can, and see where that gets you. Obviously its not going to get you anywhere, and when more and more people prove it wrong, the credibility of the myth declines. It is robbed of its mythical power once people start to realize that it is only a dream and a rumor. It can’t really happen, and they can’t live like that and expect great things to happen. They end the myth by living according to reality, and not the myth.

Anyyyyyy minute now I'll be rich

In Ragged Dick the image that the author portrays is false in its entirety. He basically tells everyone that if they just work hard at whatever they do, eventually something will randomly happen to them and they will become rich. This, however is not true. That does not happen. If you work hard and work your way up the ladder, you can become successful and maybe become rich. Just working hard doesn’t get you there. You have to have some luck and talent.

The author says that if you just stay in your own little place in the world something will find you. This is not true, because usually opportunities don’t find you, you have to go and find them. It’s not likely that you are going to end up on a ferry where a little kid falls over the edge, his father can’t swim, and you happen to be an expert swimmer. You jump over the edge and save the kid, who’s father happens to be a very rich man, and in return gives you a job, the very same kind of job you were wanting to get. He also pays you three times more than what you could get somewhere else.

Things like that just don’t happen. Sometimes, a random event could occur, but the likeliness is as small as the littlest doll in a Russian nesting doll set. I find this piece annoying because, I’m sure the author knew as he wrote it, that it was no where near reality. People are also naïve enough to believe him, and it’s people like that that end up poverty stricken, because they are just waiting for something to happen.

D^2 diversity and discrimination

To Stephen Cruz, the American Dream is wrong because of the racism that controls the business industry. He talks about how he was always making a good amount of money and that he was always hired for jobs he was qualified for, but he also got them over an equally qualified person, because he was Mexican. I agree that this racism exists in the business world. Everyone wants to have a diverse group of employees because it makes them look good, and it makes them look like they aren’t discriminating. By picking people to work for you based on race (even if it is hiring and not firing) it is discriminating. Discriminating isn’t only when you do something bad to a certain race, its when you single them out for being that race. There may not be “racism” as much as there used to be, because more and more people are tolerant of other races, but they are still separating them, and using them to make their company résumé look better. By using diversity to make you look like you are diverse and tolerant, is just negating everything you are trying to do by hiring a minority. The stereotypes of races also play a big part in hiring for diversity. If its an accounting job, they are more likely going to hire the Asian, because Asians are good at math right? Or they might hire the Mexican because he will get along with anyone? Businesses want the outside to know that they have minorities working for them because it makes them look good, but they don’t let the public know that the minorities’ ideas may not be heard.

class is now in session

The essay makes the case that the wealthy are exploiting the poor by being the ones who have all the jobs and are making the money, and getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer, and just getting by in a world run by the rich. It assumes this by talking about the myths and realities that are present in American society. Other ways this could be interpreted is that the wealthy are just the ones who are trying harder, and the poor aren’t trying enough to get above the rich. I think that our society is run by the wealthy. I also think that there aren’t that many “rich” people, and that most people in America fall into the large middle class spectrum. I still think that there are many people who fall below this spectrum, and are the poor. The poor out number the rich, and the middle class out number both. You would think that the middle class would run society because they are the largest class. This isn’t true because the middle class is always working to be “rich.” They are always working for rich people, and are trying to attain what they have. In fact, they will never reach this status at which they want to be. As they gain money and continue to get “rich” the rich are also gaining more money and still will be richer than them. There will always be a poor, middle, and upper class, no matter how much each of them earn. The poor could be earning a million dollars a year, but the middle class would be earning 10 million and the upper class 20 million. I just don’t think that the classes matter that much because there will always be a difference in income and the jobs that people have. People wont just start earning the same amount for being a janitor at a hospital and being a doctor at the same hospital.

I like my meat, thank you very much

Claim: Jim should be a vegetarian
Reasons: because of animal cruelty
Grounds: examples of animal cruelty
Warrant: animal cruelty is wrong
Backing: religious beliefs, and personal narrative
Rebuttal: meat is a valuable part of a diet
Qualifier: buy from local/ organic farmers


I think that this author argues her point well. She says why she thinks he should be a vegetarian, and gives logical reasons as to why he should stop eating meat. She uses stories and appeals to pathos by explaining what happens to the animals on large factory farms. She then realizes that Jim, her audience, is not going to become a vegetarian, and suggests that he buy his meat from local and organic farmers who do not use animal cruelty to make money. She thinks that if he has to eat, he should eat the meat that is prepared in a human way.

watch the movie, dont read the book

Visual arguments can be more persuasive. Often times, an arguments could be well written, but if they aren’t written in a way that that certain person can understand and connect to, then it isn’t effective. Almost all people can connect to a visual argument. Its easy to see something put before you and to understand what it is telling you. As a visual society, we like to take the easy way, and just use the visual argument because you know just about everyone who sees it will understand it and agree or disagree. With a written or verbal argument, the audience may not understand what your claim is, or what your reasons are. Visual arguments are most likely equally as persuasive as a non-visual argument, but if given the choice of which to use, a visual argument may be more effective. Either one could be more persuasive, but the visual is more likely to get an audience.

Ethos much?

The ethical responsibilities the author has to the reader, is to be knowledgeable about the issue and to be fair. To be knowledgeable about the issue, you have to know both sides of the argument. You have to know what your claim is and all the reasons that could help you support it. You also have to know the rebuttal and all the reasons you could shut down those rebuttals. To be fair, and to improve the ethos, if you show that you understand the other viewpoint, you are more likely to get the reader to listen to your argument with an open mind. If they listen to your argument with an open mind, they are more likely to change their mind and agree with you.
Our media and our government do not often live up to these responsibilities of argument. They are often not fair and don’t present both sides of the issue. They usually just present the one they want people to believe and that’s it. That is a big reason as to why a lot of America is ignorant on political and world issues. They only listen to one thing and just believe it and don’t try to confirm it, or listen to other sides.

pseudo or irrational?

This is an argument that has happened many a time, with this person who shall remain nameless. (but not really because who else would argue this with me?)
Argument:

Me: Showing cows isn’t the same as showing horses.
Opponent: Yes it is.
Me: No, all you do is walk your cow around the ring.
Opponent: All you do is walk your horse around the ring.
Me: No, we don’t walk around the ring. There are multiple classes we enter, some we go around the ring to confirm soundness. Sometimes they are to see the way of going, others we jump courses. So, that is not the same as walking a cow around a ring.
Opponent: Yes it is, you just go around the ring.
Me: Do you RIDE a cow? No, I didn’t think so.
Opponent: That doesn’t matter.

Now, as you can see, this is clearly not an argument, because I am giving clear reasons as to why they are not the same. The other party is just using the same reasoning over and over. This is a pseudo argument because, it doesn’t go anywhere, and one side is irrational in their reasoning.

Pathos = pathology or empathy?

When arguing, using pathos is a powerful rhetoric device because of the way it gets people to read or listen to the argument. We get the words sympathy and empathy from the word pathos. When you make up a scenario that someone can relate to, like in The Case for Torture, when he uses the dying babies, you get a different reaction out of the reader than if you were to just say, “torture is right.” When you use an example like the dying babies, of course the reader is going to think, “DYING BABIES? THAT’S HORRIBLE! WE SHOULD TORTURE PEOPLE FOR THAT. ” And then, you have won your argument. The audience agreed with you because you put them into an emotional situation. Its also hard for people to think in a rational way when things that our society have decided are wrong start happening. Of course its not ok to steal, its not ok to kill someone. When you use arguments that put peoples emotions into it, it gets people to think about it differently and more personally than if you were to just say what you thought.

lions, tigers and the AP Exam..oh my

The AP exam in the spring is a little nerve racking, mostly because its an unknown. We will practice all year, and become prepared for it. we can do practice problems and be told what is on it, but we still have never taken it before.
I think right now, I am fairly prepared for the exam because I obviously know how to read and can answer questions about the reading. The unknown part, is the questions that they ask. I think that by the time the exam rolls around there wont be much to worry about because we will have learned so much about rhetoric we'll be sick of it. I really dont think you can be scared of anything yet, because we arent that far into the year, and we havent learned nearly all of the things that we will need to know yet. If you asked me the same question closer to the exam, I would know if I needed to be worried or not.

Case for Torture

The “Case for Torture” article leaves you with an interesting feeling after reading it the first time. He states his claim and spits his thoughts at you so fast, you don’t have time to think about what you might personally think. He writes smart because, he uses facts and stories, but they are all skewed toward his argument. He doesn’t use anything that could be turned around and used to counter his argument. He also uses stories and ‘what if’ scenarios that are relatable to anyone. His plane story is just as relatable for his pre 9/11 world as it is for out post 9/11 world. His sardonic views of the other side of the argument, make the people who agree with him agree with him even more. He knows his readers and he writes to them well. His arguments may seem a little extreme but they make sense. You don’t even have to agree with the points he tries to make, as long as you agree with his overall message, he has done what he set out to do. After reading the piece the first time you have to stop and think what he is trying to say, and then reread it with that thought it mind. Without that thought you cant really decide if you agree with his statements, and you can then decide if you want to agree with him or not.

Genre and Reading an Argument

The political cartoon is from the Copley News Service which means it is of the Public Affairs or niche Magazine articles genre. The argument it is stating is that the people who are against GE food are so crazy that they wouldn’t even feed it to a starving person. The fact that it is in a magazine that is just for free lance writers and people to discuss and give views on current events helps the argument, because it means that people with all views will be reading the magazine. The people who agree with the cartoon will let it strengthen their belief, while the people against it, will let it add more fuel to their fire and show that people are ignorant about the issue.
The picture on page 24, is from the Vegetarian Times. This is a public affairs advocacy advertisement, because it is in a specialized magazine. Its genre helps its argument because the people who will be seeing it already think in the terms that it is using. They are more likely to be persuaded by the picture ad, or they are more likely to already agree with it and let it increase their level of belief.

Explicit vs Implicit

Explicit arguments are arguments that state the claim and then use reason and evidence to back it up. It is used in a basic paper written for an English class. This is what you think of when you think of an argument, or a debate. You start with a thought or idea and then you use statistics, previous writings, or other proven facts, to support your idea. Explicit arguments are very direct and concrete and you know what the argument is about and what viewpoint is.
Implicit arguments are very indirect, and use poems, stories or photos to get your point across. It is not concrete and doesn’t look like an argument. It still does state the claim, and support the idea. You as the reader or the observer have to figure out what the author is trying to convey in their message. Like the Veteran’s Day photograph and the poem in the book, they both convey a message about serving your country and about how it takes a certain kind of person to stand up and take on a task such as that. You know this is what the author wants you to know, but they don’t just tell you that. That is the main difference between explicit and implicit, the difference between telling and showing.

Memory...

I had watched a video of a horse that my trainer thought would be good for me. I really liked him and my parents thought that it could be a good thing for me. They told me that they would talk it over, and let me know. One day they told me that we were going to the barn so that they could talk to my trainer about getting him, about the costs and the responsibility. They, for some reason thought that I should know what I was getting into, when in fact I already knew. I spent so much time taking care of other people’s horses, why couldn’t I take care of my own? When it was time to leave I was looking around for my paddock boots to wear, because I never like to go to the barn without them. I couldn’t find them anywhere, and when I asked my mom if she had seen them, she told me they were in the back of the car. I thought this was weird because I hadn’t put them there, but I didn’t think much of it, and just thought they had been moved. We, my parents my sisters and I, drove to the barn. This was a little weird I thought, because if we were just going to talk about a horse, and we weren’t going to do anything else, why were my sisters coming? We got to the barn and my parents went into the office with my trainer, but before she walked in the door of the office, she told me that there was a new horse over in the other barn that she wanted me to go get and clean up a little. I walked over, thinking about nothing really, because she always had me do things like that. I found the horse where she said it would be and I had a thought that it looked like the one in the video. But no, we were just talking about getting it. I took it out and walked from that barn to the other in the snow, having an excited feeling that it could be him, but it was probably just wishful thinking. But a girl can hope, right? I walked in the barn door and my dad took a picture and I looked up and my mom was in the hayloft with a video camera. At the point where the flash went off I knew that this was my horse, this was Chateau. I was really excited, and later my mom told me that I didn’t look very happy at all. I told her that it was because I was so shocked. She thought that I must have known beforehand, because I didn’t act excited, but it was just that I had no clue. I probably had tears in my eyes, but I who really knows. I tacked him up and walked through the snow again to the arena where I got on him and the first thing he did, was buck. Not just a little, “I’m stiff buck,” but a full on “I have a ton of energy buck.” I just laughed and thought it was funny, but later my mom told me that she thought I was going to get off and say I didn’t want him, and that I didn’t like him. I rode around, and realized that this horse really was all that I had made him out to be. He was basically amazing. He went into the most beautiful frame ever, with extreme ease. His canter was beautiful, big long loping strides. You could sit it and not even move. His trot was also perfection, the kind of trot that you can sit and win an equitation class on. My trainer then told me a command to give him. It was something I had never done before. I was supposed to give the command of a canter, but keep my inside leg on him too. And he moved his haunch in. This was cleverly named haunches in. She gave me a few more commands to do, and he did them like they were nothing. Then she told me to hop off because she wanted to show me something he could do. She got on and cantered him in a pirouette, his back legs stationary, as the front pivoted around. Not only was he an amazing mover and jumper, but he was also trained up to fourth level dressage. I was so lucky to have gotten him, and I don’t know what my riding life would have been like if I didn’t.

Off Topic Discussion Reflection

Today in class, we were talking about the piece of writing "How I Started to Write" which we had read the night before. The author is Mexican because his father is, but he was born in Panama City. We talked about how this influenced his writing and his relationship with his father, and how he didn't really connect with Mexico until he was there. From there, we started to talk about how Alex just got his green card in the mail, and how he now had dual citizenship. Then we said that America doesn't recognize the citizenship in of the other country. Someone asked why that was, but that was even too off topic for us.

Therefore,

Dual citizenship is allowed. Most of the laws that forbid it are no longer in action because of the cases, of Afroyim v. Rusk, in 1967 as well as Vance v. Terrazas in 1980. However, you can only have it if you were a US citizen first and then become a citizen of another country. When you become a US citizen, you are supposed to renounce your other citizenship. As a minor, you don't have to do this until you are of age. You can hold both citizenships, in a way. If the person's native country chooses to ignore that US law, and let you keep your citizenship, the US is doing nothing to stop that.



http://www.richw.org/dualcit/faq.html#noway


NOTE: Alex's kitty folder = baller

How I Started to Write

Carlos Fuentes has a story telling style to his writing. He starts off by telling you in a descriptive manner, about his mother, and his birth. His story telling isn't in any way monotonous. He doesn't just state the facts and just tell you what happens. He shows you what happens, by explaining what they were doing, where they were, what was around them. In the opening, he talks about his mother at the movie, watching a silent screen version of an opera.

His style is also influenced by his Mexican heritage. He starts by talking about how he is a Scorpio, and how that exemplifies who he is as a person. I think this shows that he is proud of his background, or at least lets it influence the way he writes. By letting his background into his writing he creates a unique style that can't really be copied, because no one has had the experiences he has, to shape is writing style.

P.S.

I just want it to be known that I find it incredibly annoying that it says "1 comments" at the bottom of the post. It bugs me.

Discussion of "Red Sky in the Morning"

I enjoyed this story very much, especially after reading "The Crack Up." While reading "The Crack Up," you had to try to figure out what Fitzgerald is trying to say. Its not really up for interpretation. You just have to figure out what he is saying. In "Red Sky in the Morning," there is an intended message, but the author leaves it up to the reader to find what it means for them personally.

We first talked about the quote, which titles the book, "I could tell you stories." The middle aged woman says this to the author, referring to her relationship and life with her husband, who is often mistaken for her son. We discussed what we usually think of if someone said this to us. It could mean that she really didn't have anything to say, or it could mean that there was so much to tell, but she never would. The woman leaves an air of mystery by saying this, and the reader is allowed to jump to whatever conclusions they want to.

We also talked about, " A story, we sense, is the only possible habitation for the burden or our witnessing.” We talked about how a story is all we have left over after something happens. A story is the best we can do to try to help someone else understand what we have experienced. "A burden of our witnessing" could mean that it is your duty to tell the story, and to share it with others. A story is a strong thing, it connects us all, whether we know it or not. When someone tells a story and someone listens, the listener now has the story with them to share with others.

"Red Sky in the Morning" was a good piece for a class discussion, because of the way it can try into the other pieces we have read, and the new topics we could bring up after reading it.

How class is going so far.

I think that so far class is going well. Having a little homework every night instead of a lot of homework every few nights is helpful. I feel like if its given at a steady pace, then we know what is going on and are able to participate in discussions in class. During class I like that we have discussions that i think everyone is able to join into. Having one person take notes is helpful, because I know that my notes are okay, but I also know that other people wouldn't be able to follow them. Our discussions are usually pretty good, but we go off topic, while still on the topic a lot. These conversations are always interesting, but then the questions that were supposed to be answered never get answered. Sometimes thats not a bad thing, but others i feel like it would have been more beneficial if we had stayed on the question that was posed in the first place. Overall I think class is going well, and if it continues like this, or somewhat close, I think it will be a good year.