First Quarter, In Review

Overall, this quarter went very well for our AP Composition class. I thought that, while we were at each others' throats most of the time, the energy that our class shared helped exponentially in making the discussions both more interesting and intuitive.

Also, I thought that while some of the readings seemed a bit unnecessary (Mary Wollstonecraft), most of them proved to be quite entertaining, if not enlightening. Some of my favorite texts that we read include: "Death of a Fish," by Adam Gopnik, "From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies," by Dennis Baron, "What is Poverty," by Theodore Dalrymple, "What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them," by Gertrude Stein, "A Carnivore's Credo," by Roger Scruton, and "A Modest Proposal," by Jonathan Swift, among others. I especially enjoyed said texts because they dove into the most readable, deep depths of intellect that seemed reasonable (if not truthful) to me.

In finale, I hope that next quarter proves to be as enthralling as this quarter and that our class's energy is maintained in both our discussions and analysis of these exceptional works.

Initial Reaction to O'Brien's Masterpiece

This book is amazing!!! I share 100% the enthusiasm of my fellow classmates for Tim O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried. O'Brien has a beautiful voice and his uncensored description of the war in Vietnam is proving very effective to me. I especially love how his book is laid out as a series of short stories about his life around the time of the war and how they are all interconnected, enhancing the story.

The main stylistic point that has made an impact on me thus far in reading O'Brien's novel is in the first chapter when he makes a lengthy description of the things that the men in his Alpha Company carried during the war. He explains not only the obvious physical things that they were required to carry (guns, radios, etc.) and the things they were not required to carry (condemns, marijuana, tranquilizers, etc.), but also the emotional/psychological things that they were all burdened with, such as the deaths of many of the men in their company.

Thus far, this book has made an impact on me both as a writer and as a reader, and I cannot wait to read on and experience Tim O'Brien's amazing writing.

"Times have changed for student protestors" by Lampert Smith

In this article Lampert Smith recognizes how times have changed for political protests concerning college students in the United States. He recognizes how many students do not find the motivation for joining protests, and instead watch television or do other things. Also, the students that do take interest, are not nearly as emotional/active in the protests. Mainly, Lampert is comparing the modern-day protests with the vehement, anarchy-established protests of the 1960's.

My personal response to this issue is that I share, 100% the observations made by Lampert Smith. Today young people, especially college students, care more about drinking, partying and watching television than they do about their country/political landscape. Whether this be because there is no draft or direct contact with these students, as Smith believes, or if the students simply do not care, I believe it is that latter more than the former. Students over the past forty years have become increasingly selfish and in need of constant satisfaction in their lives, which leads them to care about partying, drinking and watching television more than the more important political topics that will come to affect their adult lives in the real world.

"A Carnivore's Credo" by Roger Scruton

This essay, by Roger Scruton, ranks as one of the most enlightening essays that I have read thus far in AP Composition. In said essay, Scruton devises an argument for the persuasion of non-meat eaters to eat meat. First, he makes many observations such as to the causes for the vegetarian movement of the past fifty years. He blames this movement primarily on the growth in the fast-food industry and on the decline in eating as a family pastime. Also, he states that eating has switched from a moral encompassing ritual, bringing families together in thanks for their food, to a savage affair that often separates family members. To bring this back to his point on why people have moved towards vegetarianism is that the current generation yearns for some sort of ethical basis in their lives, so they eat vegetables as a direct connection with mother earth; this movement has also shown up in the recent "Green" movement.

In order to tie these points into persuasion, he brings out the ethical argument near the end of the essay. First, he talks about how it is the duty of the people that recognize the need for animal appreciation, primarily the vegetarians, to eat meet so that they can bring that appreciation back into the process and not leave its future to burger-gobbling pigs. Finally, he makes a point that if we treat the consuming of meat with more respect, then the procurement of said meat and the treatment of the animals will in turn improve.

I completely agree with most of what Roger said. He brought up a lot of good observations surrounding the argument of carnivorism from both sides of the issue and I thought that his theory for the causes of the vegetarian movement was spot on. The only thing that I found a little weak in his paper was his overgeneralizing in describing the raising of cows in particular. While he recognizes the pig battery farms, he generalized the raising of cows to be positive in all cases; by this he says that most farmers treat cows with utmost admiration, taking care of them and feeding them well before they are slaughtered, and at the time of slaughter it is humane and virtually pain-free.

"What is Poverty" by Theodore Dalrymple

In this essay, Theodore describes what he interprets to be the state of poverty in varying countries in today's world. His main focus resides in, what he terms the "welfare state", or England. Dalrymple talks about how in England people take advantage of the government's welfare system, which in effect eliminates his understanding of poverty; by this he means that even the poorest class in England are treated with shelter, food, medicine and entertainment free of charge by the government. He contrasts this state of poverty with that which he observed in Africa: lepers with their noses rotted off, people with heart failure walking eight miles in 120 degree heat to get treatment and then walking back home, etc.

The main point that Theodore tries to get across throughout his essay is that in "welfare states" such as England and most of the current members of the European Union, it has become practice for the poorest of the poor to take advantage of the government; thereby not learning/gaining any values out of the experience of being poor and keeping the "Devil's Temptations" a part of their daily lives (drugs, gambling, prostitution, etc.).

Overall, I loved Theodore's essay on what he believes to be poverty. I agree with him in his observations of the welfare states and how their poor are suckled into contention. I also feel that having poverty is healthy for a society, being a capitalist, because it evens out the scales and teaches good ethics/morals; every family tree has a low point on it, and this is where they find their values to live by.

"From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies" by Dennis Baron

This quaint history of writing by Dennis Baron was quite dry in parts, but was effective in outlining the main events in the development of writing. After reading the chapter in Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel about the history of writing, I was already somewhat informed on its roots in Sumerian Cuneiform and so on, but what I especially took from Baron's article was his description on how people have accepted different writing technologies as they have come to be over the years.

Dennis talks about how every time there is a technology invented in the advancement of writing, it is not widely accepted at first and may not even be taken seriously. For example, when writing was first developed on stone tablets that were inscribed using styluses, because the majority of people were illiterate they took the scribes as being a joke much as people took the computer geeks of the nineties (when this article was most likely written). Another example would include Plato's criticism of writing when it was developed during ancient times, because he believed that written events weakened the actual memories of said events.

Besides showing how many people rejected the new technologies, Baron described how people over the ages reacted to the new technologies. First he told the story of how pencil makers initial rejected Morse code and the basis that they did not see it being effective. In turn, the developer of Morse code rejected the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell on the basis that he did not see it being effective because one could not record the conversations (in the initially invention).

The final point that I took out of Baron's article was that of differing reactions to the technologies of the pencil, the typewriter and the computer. First, the pencil grew in wide use by the fact the the only alternative was the pen and bottle of ink, so the pencil was a portable technology that could be easily taken anywhere. Also, with the invention of the typewriter and eventually the computer, the QWERTY keyboard system was developed in order to slow down typing speed so that the given machines would not break. This odd system of keyboard has stuck to this day due to widespread popularity.

My Genome, Myself: Seeking Clues in DNA by Amy Harmon

This essay was one of the most well-written and engaging choice essays that I have encountered during this term. In this essay, Amy Harmon tells the story of how she entered herself into a genome testing facility in order to be able to read her own DNA and find out clues to what her physiology will be like in the future. She talks about how she could see what traits she was given by her genes and also what diseases she would be at risk for in the future.

Throughout this essay, Amy brings up the question of whether or not it is ethical for humans to control the power to see their own make-up and their own future physiology? I believe that this is ethical, because saying that it is not is saying that every scientific breakthrough, including the discovery of DNA in the first place, is unethical. Humans have been blessed with the evolutionary capability of constantly increasing our knowledge due to our need to find out more about the world around us.

As to whether or not I would ever go through this genome testing, my answer would be no. This all seems like a waste of time to me because, while it is quite interesting, my genes do not write who I have to be. I could have some genes that say I am suppose to be ten pounds heavier than the average male, but because I am athletic and exercise constantly I am not. Also, I'm sure I do have some genes for a future of Heart disease or Kidney disease, but because I have a healthy diet I am not worried about these things.

Overall, while genes may seem valuable on the surface, they are not the final answer to any question. Our lives will never become predetermined, because of the simple fact of human ability, meaning that we can do whatever we set our minds to as long as we keep in mind two factors: devotion and patience.

For me, I'll just stick to the practice of seizing the day, because you never know if it will be here tomorrow.

My Fear

While most people fear things such as snakes, spiders, death, or other objects associated with some form of pain, either physical or emotional, my fear outlines an internal struggle that has bugged me for a while now. My only real fear is that by my time of death, I will not have had a legitimate effect on the world and that I have not experienced my consciousness to the full extent.

I struggle constantly with thoughts of why we are here on this planet and what we are suppose to be doing. Obviously most would say that we are here to reproduce and make the earth and our species/ecosystem last as long as it possibly can, but the question that I struggle with is if our only purpose is solely to reproduce and extend the longevity of our race, then why have we come to be blessed with the complex consciousness and ability to think that we have?

This question always ends me in the philosophy that no one can truly answer this question, as Douglas Adam's novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, satirically points out, and that one can do nothing but enjoy the consciousness and the time that one has on earth, as the most famous of Latin phrases states,"Carpe Diem."

So, while I am not particularly afraid of physical or emotional pain or death, I am afraid of the fact that I cannot answer the question of life's purpose. I recognize that I will most likely never develop an answer for this, so I have come to put this fear at the back of my mind and live to Horace's philosophy of taking advantage of the time that we have here.

On Everything Is An Argument By Andrea A. Lunsford, John J. Ruszkiewicz

This reading was one of the most stimulating readings that I have encountered thus far in AP Composition. In this reading Andrea and John talk about how every text can be a form of an argument, whether its a flat out argument, a persuasive essay or even just a political campaign poster. I think that this reading is mainly interesting because it outlines, though not outright, how itself is an argument for arguments being in all texts.

One of the parts that I found particularly interesting in this text was the section pertaining to the ancient Statis Theory. I thought that this theory follows a good path by laying out the questions in order: Did something happen? What is its nature? What is its quality? and What actions should be taken? If answered correctly, this theory of argument would be able to solve most forensic arguments.

The section that I found most interesting in this texts was that pertaining to the Rogerian argument. This form of argument involves the aggressor finding common ground with the opponent, thereby establishing a form of trust and then presenting their argument in a non-threatening manner. I have seen this form of argument being used a lot in our society, and this seems to me to have become the most devious, yet effective form.

While I disagree that every text could be perceived as an argument (as we can define anything in any way that we choose), I liked this reading a lot and found it vary informative in enhancing my knowledge of different forms/theories on arguments.

The Courthouse Ring by Malcolm Gladwell

I thought that the Courthouse Ring was an amazing insight on the thoughts surrounding racism represented in the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In this essay Malcolm Gladwell talks about how before the famous Brown vs. Board of Education trial, the southern half of the U.S., especially Alabama was effected by moderate politicians such as Jim Folsom, governor of Alabama. Malcolm explains how Lee represented the moderate Folsom in her famous book through the portrayal of Addicus Finch. The main idea behind Folsomism and Jim Crow politics of the time was the frase "Separate but Equal," or segregation of blacks and whites. Jim Folsom was a man that was known for his moderate appeasement of both blacks and whites, and how he would throw lavish parties for blacks in Alabama, yet did nothing really to try and integrate the south. Now a lot have said that this is just as good as racism, because you are still keeping the black population separate from the white, and in this act one would say that it is impossible for them to truly be equal, and I would agree with this. What I don't agree with is people saying the "big Jim" was a bad man for doing this. What one has to keep in mind is that Folsom had grown up during the twenties and thirties, during some of the most racist times in America, and in Alabama of all places. One must see that Jim could never have been able to fathom integration of blacks and whites, because before he was around there was never an inkling of a thought to this. Jim did simply the best he could understand doing, and that is treating the negro as best he could, even better than the white in most cases. Therefore, while Jim and Addicus were neither radical nor liberal in their racial standings, it was not truly their fault, because they could not fathom true integration of blacks into white society in the time and place that they grew up and were living in.

How I Write

The first thing that I do whenever I am going to write about a topic or piece of work is think about it. I spend as long as it takes to think about the topic and develop my own interpretation or take on it. Also, I usually try to develop a thesis and a plan for where I want this topic to go, but for the most part, when I write a rough draft, I usually just let what I'm thinking and processing at the time take me through the paper. Then, when I sit down to the computer or to the table to start writing, I tend to think through every sentence before I right or type it.

One of the main things that I always try to do while writing is to take my own point of view that makes sense to me and that I can believe in, while at the same time back up with a lot of different details/facts. By doing this, I can fill up the page, inform the reader of what I know, while at the same time hopefully sounding like I know what I'm talking about.

Finally, once I have finished saying all that I have to say on the topic, and the page is filled, I take a break, eat some food, relax and turn my mind off, preparing to go back to the topic. After I have done this I head back to the computer and read over what I wrote in the heat of the moment, first checking over the grammar, then checking over the content and adding all of the new ideas that I come up with after the fact. Once this ordeal is done, and I feel the writing is somewhat suitable, I publish/print.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

In this book Jared Diamond, professor of physiology at the UCLA School of Medicine, attempts to put forth the reasons for why things are the way they are in the world. In doing this, he composes a brief history of the world from the beginning of "civilization", or what he terms to be 13,000 B.C.
Diamond starts out with an overview of the migration of homo-sapiens across the globe, first into Asia from Africa, then Europe and Oceania and finally into the Americas. He then spends the remainder of the book going over what factors contributed to some peoples having technological advantages over other peoples and how they were able to either exterminate or contribute to the evolution of those peoples.
Jared starts from the bottom in pointing out how the basic geographic features of the continents affected the ability of said continents' inhabitants to develop domestication of plants and farming. First, he states that the continent of Eurasia had a bigger advantage from the start, because it is by far larger than any of the other continents, and holds the most domesticable native plants. Then, he points out how the continents' axes affect agriculture and how it took many more years for Americans and Africans to develop agriculture than it did for Eurasians, because America and Africa have a vertical axis, with many varying climates and obstacles such as the Saharan and Mexican deserts, respectively, which would make it hard for the spread of agriculture, while Eurasia has a horizontal axis with few varying climates, which makes it easy. Then, he points out how Eurasia also had a way bigger advantage in that it has a lot more native domesticable animals than any other continent, and how these animals made food production even easier.
The next big thing that Diamond points out is how food production leads to the forming of civilization in that it allows many people to live close together and have jobs other than finding food and hunting (as is in a traditional hunter-gatherer society). These jobs then lead to the development of technologies such as writing systems (in order to record farming records), governments (to control the large number of people living closely together), and steel/guns (for weapons against other warring societies). Another advantage that these early civilizations brought to the table in Eurasia were germs, carried by the domesticated animals that they lived with and were used for farming. After thousands of years of living with these germs, the people of Eurasia built up an immunity to them, leaving themselves as human viruses to people outside Eurasia who were not immune to said germs.
Finally, Diamond talks about how Eurasians evolved so much faster allowing them, in 1492 to start a conquest of the globe, using their advanced guns, germs, and steel to exterminate or enslave all natives of other continents. In the end, Jared brings us back from all the detail and second-guessing about the causes for everything and points out a very simple fact-that the evolution of the continents could have easily been predicted by simply looking at the varying population sizes: Eurasia being first, Africa being second, the Americas being third and Australia being last.
Jared Diamond's masterpiece was by far the most well-written and informative book that I have ever read. It crushes all racial barriers in explaining, using archaeological and linguistic evidence, how the peoples' of the world came to be where they were in 1492 and how Eurasians did not have a biological advantage (as many racists believe), but a mere geographical one. This book made me look at the world in a whole different way and understand why peoples such as Aboriginal Australians and African Pygmies came to be conquered by white Europeans as well as made me notice things about the world that I never would have noticed before. Finally, it got me thinking, is it really fair to suggest that we white Europeans are any more intelligent than those Aboriginal Australians or African Pygmies, just because we had an evolutionary advantage over them? I believe the answer is no, because we are all physiological the same and therefore, given the same evolutionary tools, we would all have the same chance at becoming what we are today.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

Chap. II. The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed
Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman is possibly the most well-known feminist treatise of our time, and because it was the first truly feminist work of literature she is accredited as being the mother of the feminist movement. The main theme of this chapter shows Mary's observance of the practice of her time which was to have women that yielded and became mere coquettes to men. She observed how, in her time, women were merely educated in the rights of manners while men were educated of the world. Ms. Wollstonecraft also refutes many poets and authors including the famous Jean-Jacques Rousseau as well as Dr. John Gregory in observing the necessity for mankind to tear itself away from the old ideals expressed by these two men (those of women not being educated and becoming the pawns of "tyrants" and "sensualists") and recognize women on the same standard as men, as valued intellectuals. As Mary shows throughout the chapter, she doesn't want just for women to have equal social and political rights with men, but she wants a whole new view on women to be fastened to the minds of society. In saying this, she recognizes that she may be asking for a "Utopian" principle when asking for total integration of the female race into the intellectual world, but nevertheless she was way ahead of her time in introducing this wholly new ideal. Also, Mary recognizes the difference between friendship and love and quotes a "shrewd satirist" in saying "that rare as true love is, true friendship is still rarer", which shows her opinion that men and women should not marry for mere love (which she labels more as desire and passion) but, using reason, should match for friendship and find each other companions, here would lie the only answer for immortal love. Finally, Mary closes with the argument in which she began in saying that society should accept this truly healthy ideal of bringing women into the intellectual world because "as sound politics diffuse liberty, mankind, including woman, will become more wise and virtuous."
Mary's Vindication brings up to me a question, have we as a truly more enlightened and intellectual society, more than two hundred years later integrated women fully into the intellectual world, or are they still stuck as being pawns of man's desire? The answer to me is quite bluntly no. Even though we find, in our world today, brilliant women at the head of our science industries, teaching in the best universities across the globe, and becoming leading figures in many nations' governments, women are still found to be sexually exploited in movies, television shows, and especially advertisements. This exploitation brings to me a second question of will attractive young women ever be looked at as more than just sexual objects put to good use selling merchandise and movie tickets? For me, at least at the present moment the answer is still a resounding no. As long as our society can subjugate women, and these young women allow it to happen, women will not reach the full integration into our intellectual society that Ms. Wollstonecraft was wishing for two hundred years ago.

Is Google Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr

(Below: Persistence of Time by Salvador Dali )

In this essay, Nicholas Carr poses the question of whether or not websites such as Google, the Internet and computers in general are making us less intelligent. Carr opens with the observation that the more time he and many of the people he interviewed spent on the computer, it became harder for them to stay focused and think about a long essay and/or book while reading it. Because I don't really spend that much time on the computer (other than that spent on maintaining this blog) I hadn't really noticed this happening to me, but I can see where his point of view is coming from. Nicholas then puts up an opinion that these problems being experienced with focus may be caused by the fact that when one is on the Internet there is a "staccato quality" to the facts and information that one is observing (only taking in the main points), so when one goes to read a long book or article, he/she ends up skimming it for the main points automatically. What I took out of this and what I've observed with sites such as Google, Wikipedia, etc., is that these sites are making it easy for us to find out facts and answers without having to obtain conclusions for ourselves, leaving out all of the details of the situation and succumbing us to a sort-of spoon-fed literacy. As Nicholas points out psychologist Maryanne Wolf shows that we are not only "what we read" but "we are how we read", meaning that if we skim over the Internet, we are bound to skim over a book or article. Another good point that Mr. Carr brought up was that of an observation made by one of Friedrich Nietzsche's good friends, who noticed that Nietzsche's writing style became "tighter (and) more telegraphic" as Nietzsche switched from writing with pen and paper to writing with a typewriter. From what I've observed, this is most likely because when one is writing with pen and paper they are expending more effort than it takes to type on a typewriter or computer, so one in turn thinks about and explores what one is writing. Later in the article, I was intrigued by when Mr. Carr observed the movement in the 14th century from life without the mechanical clock to life with mechanical clocks. He then quotes Joseph Weizenbaum who observes how when the mechanical clock came around "we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock" in our daily lives, in effect become slaves to schedules and time. This is a very scary idea to me because it is true that time has come to control society, everything that we do tends to run on a schedule, leaving the clock, not us, in control of our lives. Then, Nicholas brings up the idea of, starting in the Industrial Revolution, men becoming machines. He observes how it all started with Frederick Winslow Taylor who made an "algorithm" to calculate what workers at a machinery factor must do in order to keep productivity at a maximum, looking at men like they were machines themselves. Also, Mr. Carr looks at the subject of this article, Google, and how, in their own words, they are striving to "build artificial intelligence" that may, in the future replace peoples' brains! This to me seems like a joke, I mean it is just absurd that anyone would want to replace human thought with "the perfect search engine", in effect devaluing human consciousness and existence in general. To add to this thought, they are overlooking the idea that if these artificial brains replaced our own, the machines would be our consciousness, living our lives for us, and we would become the machines or the vehicles necessary for the artificial brains to survive. It all sounds like a sci-fi movie gone wrong to me, and I believe it is completely bogus. Finally, I thought the main thing to take out of this article was a quote by playwright Richard Foreman at the end of the article, stating that as we move from spoken and written information to Internet streaming we are becoming "pancake people-spread wide and thin", meaning as we open ourselves to this vast amount of information, we come to know a lot but not a lot about what we know.

Skunk Dreams by Louise Erdrich

In general, I loved Louise's writing style and admire how she uses metaphors and detailed descriptions to express her encounters with skunks and wildlife. Also, I thought that she brought up some good questions that I've been struggling with. First, she brought up a quote by David H. Lund that asks the question of what reality is. He says that in a dream reality is the image made that one's unconscious is living and that you perceive the dream world as being real. Then she brings up the idea of how this could constitute reason for there being an afterlife, because one's (unconscious) self might be able to 'live' on after the conscious self (what our brain perceives as ourselves as were are alive) dies. My personal opinion on this topic is that our conscious selves (brains) cannot perceive their own demise (you cannot perceive not perceiving) so our mind needs an excuse for living on, which ends in theories of the after-life, reincarnation, and the list goes on. The next interesting topic that Ms. Erdrich brings up is that of the phenomena of Déjà vu. She tells a story about how she dreamed of a herd of elk and then ran into the same herd in real life. I have been struggling with this phenomena as well because I have had multiple occurrence where I would dream of being in a situation (or at least thought I did) and then ran right into the situation days, weeks or months later. Some experts say that these dreams stimulate our unconscious to guide us towards making them 'real' in our conscious lives and this is what has tended to make the most sense for me. The problem is that no one can control their unconscious (as many hypnotist around the world show). Another interesting question that she quoted from British psychotherapist Adam Phillips is the question of "whether obstacles create desire or desire creates obstacle". Personally, I believe that it's both, because in some situations obstacles make one want to work for something, while in other situations one wants something and because of this obstacles are created along the path to achieve that goal. A good example would be becoming an Olympian: I could just go to swim practice and do my normal routine and end up as an Olympian by fate or I could strive to become an Olympian and put in extra effort, meeting obstacles such as time constraints on practicing. Finally, one of my favorite parts of this essay is when Louise states that "the obstacles that we overcome define us." This is a wonderful statement of life in general, which I interpreted that our conscious actions and experiences define what our life is and has been and is going to be and who we are or are perceived to be.

The Talk Of The Town Part II

Susan Santag on World Trade Center Bombings:
In this article, Susan opens with a rather pessimistic, but understandable view on the reactions of the politicians and the mass media after the events of September 11, 2001. She is "depressed" at the rather hot-headed accusations made by the press and the Politicians, when calling the terrorists cowards, as well as their deception when stating America's candor. She also states that such "reality-concealing rhetoric" is "unworthy of mature democracy". Finally, she closes with the opinion that, sure America's strong (obviously, we are the number one nuclear power in the world and control the United Nations), but "that's not all America has to be".
While I am not quite sure what Ms. Santag means by her last statement "that's not all America has to be", I do agree with her, as of late, about the deception of the press and Politicians "unworthy of democracy". Ever since the Watergate Scandal of 1972, it seems that the press has made a shift and is becoming more and more biased. This curve towards total bias steepened exponentially in the last presidential race between John McCain and Barack Obama. It was shown that most of the news reporters and anchormen and women of many stations including NBC, ABC, CBS, as well as and especially MSNBC were openly biased towards the Democratic Party. Walter Cronkite, before his death, even stated in an interview how disgusted he was at the Media for not doing it's job and showing open bias on stories such as the election. Finally, pure democracy shows a sway from left to right on the political spectrum while keeping balanced, but because of the recent economic crisis the government has swayed further left than has ever happened before, leaving me wondering, will it ever balance itself out again or has the scale and our democracy broken at last?

The Talk Of The Town Part I

Adam Gopnik on Virginia Tech Massacre:
When Adam opened his essay with the information about the dead students' cell phones ringing as they were carried out of the school, I was taken aback and drawn in at the same time. It made me think of all the petite tragedies that occur during these events that make the reader feel sick inside. He then went on to talk about how everyone talks about restricting guns or waging war after events such as this when all that should happen, at least initially, is a healing process. But the answer to this is quite obvious, because the mass media reacts to the emotions of the public. If the public is angry at the killer, the media looks up information on (in this case) his mental health, trying to degrade and tarnish him as much as they can. If the public is angry at gun control laws, or perhaps even the vendor, the media looks at the laws and the vendor and fuels a biased movement in order to appease public opinion. Adam also talks about how the same goes for the government and politicians who must unsuccessfully (until Obama's presidency) appease both sides of the political spectrum, causing stagnation and little legislation to be passed. Finally, when Mr. Gopnik talks about how the reasoning for restrictions on assault weapons in America is simple, and that nations that have restrictions on such weapons do not come close to America's gun violence, I would have to agree and disagree. I agree that restricting assault weapons would help with the majority of potential killers, but there is still a good amount of such people that could and would easily be able to attain these weapons illegally. Also, when he talks about killings with rifles and shotguns being "exceptions" I have to disagree with him, because of (among other events) the Red Lake Indian Reservation shootings of 2005. This event occurred when a troubled teenager stole his grandfather's shotgun, killed his grandparents, a security guard at his High School, a teacher and five students, as well as himself.

About Myself

My name is Peter Grenzow and I am a current student of McFarland High School, enrolling as a Senior next fall. The blogs that I will be posting on this particular blog will pertain to my Advanced Placement Composition class and will contain material about some well-known books and essays both recent and somewhat out-dated. I will strive to put my best foot forward as I blog about my thoughts on these pieces of literature.