Last Blog Reflection of the Year

Last Blog Reflection of the Year  

* What did you learn about yourself as a reader from creating and keeping up with your blog?

            I never really focused on my reading as much as I did with my blog. My blog gave me a reason to focus, analyze and fully understand what I was reading. And I realized that although many people feel that reading in this way is just over doing it and doing too much work, but looking back at all of the work that I did for what I read, I now know that it is definitely my way of reading to take my time at a productive pace while also understanding and fully analyzing the text. And I read a range of types of texts this year and learned that this type of reading, now my type of reading works for both non-fiction and fiction texts. I realized that I like non-fiction but especially biographies. This year I read a biography about Steve Jobs, another about William Gates and Arthur Agee, a third about Barack Obama and another about Michael Oher. They just contain so much information and are relatable and meaningful. I feel that some of my best blog posts came from these books, so that’s why they’re some of my favorite types of books.   

* In what ways did you benefit from the experience?

Blogging was definitely a new experience for me this year, although it has many similarities to today’s social media cites and so it wasn’t very, very new to me. At times I liked it and at other moments it just bothered me. But there are many things that I benefitted from the experience. First, it gave me an organized type of schedule. I posted a blog every other week and did a synthesis page every week in between. It definitely kept me busy while I also enjoyed it. Second, it helped me to focus while reading and analyze my reading very precisely, something reading alone or reading with a reading log would definitely not do. Also reading in this type of way helped me grow as a reader and even introduced me to new ideas and genres. Third, it benefitted my reading for the reasons that I just explained while also benefitting my writing and analyzing.   
* Is writing online different than in a notebook?  In what ways?

I definitely think that writing online and maintaining a blog is a more modern version of a notebook although at the same time it’s also different than a notebook. You sort of try to write more professional online, because for one thing, it is accessible to the whole world. But also, unlike in a notebook, online you have to pay attention or maybe you don’t need to but you tend to, pay attention to what you say. This is mostly because again it’s accessible to the whole world. But notebooks are different, you can definitely make them confidential and you tend to speak your mind more and just write about whatever you want.   
* In what ways can writing online be liberating?  Limiting?

Writing online can be liberating because you can speak your mind and talk about so many different things and nobody really has the right to stop you in most cases. Liberating mean freedom and to many people the Internet is a type of freedom, it’s the only place where they can go to speak to others, speak about whatever they want and really see and do whatever they want. Writing online gives them the opportunity to reach so many people and for many is the only place where they can share their feelings and ideas. But like Ii mentioned in the previous question it can be limiting. This is for many reasons. The biggest of these reasons is because they have to pay attention to what they say because any mistake, even if they didn’t mean it can cost them a bad reputation and misinterpretations. And so they don’t have freedom, at the same time as having freedom, to speak their minds.    
* Do you think that people are more real online or do we create online personalities that project the best of ourselves? Or something else?

I think online people do create a personality that isn’t represented of them.  This is not true for all people. But, many people don’t tell you the true story about themselves through the web. The Internet allows them to hide their flaws and never let them slide by. It gives the opportunity for them to show what they want and hide what they don’t. Although it’s not the right thing to do, you can make the fake you.
* Do you think that teenagers abuse the freedom that being online gives you on sites like Facebook? Do people type things they would never say to a person's face? Do you think this is a good or bad thing? Why?

I wouldn’t say that all teenagers abuse the use of social media websites like Facebook. But many of the cases of bullying in today’s society are cyberbullying. And for many of the cyberbullies they take the freedom to write whatever they want as an advantage and don’t ever really think about the victim. They go on talking about the person while saying things that you know they’d never say in person. It’s such a cowardly type of move for them to make. It really frustrates me that these bullies just don’t care about the victim. It’s definitely a bad thing, definitely a bad way to use social media and if this type of media only had one problem it would be that it’s used for cyberbullying.
* Can you imagine yourself keeping up this blog or creating another one?  What would it be about?  What's your opinion of blogs in general and why?

I never really felt like I was the person to keep up with a blog and I remember being so frustrated when I figured out that we needed to create and  keep up with a blog this year, I just didn’t imagine myself doing it or ever being a blogger. But the experience definitely changed my view of blogs. I definitely can see myself keeping up with this blog or creating a new one. If I were to create a new one, I’m not sure what’d be about. I can try many things maybe sports.    

Blog Post for 6/6/2014: Philosophical Post on The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Blog Post for 6/6/2014: Philosophical Post on The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

            The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is about a boy named Holden Caulfield and his journey after running away from school. Holden is kicked out of school but decides to leave early one night. He heads to New York City, where he lives. He has many interactions with old friends, strangers and even an ex-girlfriend. But over the course of the book hen shows the reader the many different characteristics that he has.

One of the main characteristics that he shows is generosity, when he’s not much of a social person.  The first example of his generosity is when he asks a little girl if she knows his little sister Phoebe and where she might be, the girl does know his sister but doesn’t know where she is, she ends up not being much help but still Holden says “She was having a helluva time tightening her skate. She didn’t have any gloves on or anything and her hands were all red and cold. I gave her a hand with it. …I asked her if she’d like to have a hot chocolate…but she said no, thank you.” He did it as an act of kindness really.  Another example of his generosity is when he is eating breakfast at a diner one morning and meets two nuns. He notices that the two nuns were holding a straw basket like the ones that nuns usually hold when collecting money. After introducing himself and engaging in a conversation, he says, “‘I could make a small contribution. You could keep the money for when you do take up a collection.’… They let me give them ten bucks as a contribution.” Later he says, “I would’ve given them more but they wouldn’t let me and besides I was running low on dough.” If you were wondering why ten dollars is a big deal, this book takes place in the 1940s when money was worth way more than it is today. Also, I see this as an act of kindness really it was with very good intentions.  Later he offers to pay the nun’s lunch bill but they even say, “You’ve been more than generous, you’re a very sweet boy.” And these moments are not the only times that Holden does something like this. Another time he offers to pay and does pay for the drinks of a few girls that he meets. I’m not making a big deal out of these small deeds but they really add up and I can tell by the way Holden is as a character in the book that he really is just trying to be kind and is doing these things with good intentions. But don’t mistake my words; there are characteristics to Holden’s generosity. The first of these characteristics is that he's very practical with his generosity; it’s not as if he’s just a nice guy going around New York City handing out money. For example, this is not a great topic to be bringing up with generosity but Holden entered an elevator and the elevator man asked him if he wanted a prostitute to be brought up to his hotel room. The man says that if she stays for a little bit it would be $5 and the whole night would be $10. Later after the girl leaves, the elevator man came back yelling for another$5 but Holden doesn’t go down without a fight. He gets beat up and the $5 get taken away from him but the point is that he is not stupid with his generosity, he’s not just going around giving away money. But let me tell you something, he is stupid with money. 

Another one of the main characteristics that Holden shows the reader is being very descriptive and also very critical of others. The first example of him being this way is when he’s at a club in New York. He dances with this girl he meets and then sits with her and her friends at a table. He goes on a streak of criticism, here’s what he had to say throughout the whole encounter, “God, could that dopey girl dance…I hate a guy that does a lot of show-off tricky stuff on the dance floor… I danced with them all—the whole three of them—one at a time. The one ugly one, Laverne, wasn’t too bad a dancer, but the other one, old Marty, was murder. Old Marty was like dragging the Statue of Liberty around the floor. The only way I could even half enjoy myself dragging her around the floor was if I amused myself.” This part really got on my nerves because Holden is not perfect, he’s not a good dancer either and he even says he’s not that much good looking, so in what sense does he think he can criticize others about flaws that he has himself. He really acts like a big jerk when he criticizes others and he really does it way more than necessary. He's always either describing something for a long period of time or talking about he hates certain people and the flaws of other people. As me and my philoso-phamily discussed in our meetings we think that Holden does this because he hates himself and his own flaws. Another example of Holden criticizing others, later on in the book he is waiting for his date at a theater and all he does is look at all of the other students from different schools around him, describing certain people and what he hated about them, even when he didn’t know any of them. Here’s what he had to say, “A lot of schools were home for vacation already, and here were about a million girls sitting and standing waiting for their dates to show up. Girls with their legs crossed, girls with their legs not crossed, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell girls, girls that looked like they’d be bitches if you knew them. It was really nice sightseeing if you know what I mean… You figured most of them would marry dopey guys. Guys that always talk about how many miles they got to a gallon in their goddam cars.” I really don’t know where he comes up with all of these ideas, there are many moments like these where it seems like Holden doesn’t know what to tell the reader so he just starts describing the people around him, and he does it if he’s the one that’s perfect when he’s really not. He also seems to be very jealous of others at many times and that’s what seems to lead him to start the criticism that he always uses. A third example but definitely not the last example of when Holden shows this characteristic of criticism would be after a play that he watches with his date. He goes on about how the play was terrible and how certain actors could have done better things. And after the party his date, Sally Hayes sees one of her old friends and Holden’s jealous criticism begins to kick in. He says, “The jerk had one of those very phony, Ivy League voices, one of those very tired, snobby voices. He sounded just like a girl. He didn’t hesitate to horn in on my date.” Sometimes Holden needs to relax and just stop criticizing others. The reason for that is because he’s very contradictory with his words; he doesn’t do what he preaches. He often criticizes others about being a specific type of person but he’s really the same type of person.

A third of Holden’s characteristics that I noticed was that he gets off topic very quickly. AT one point in the book he was talking about how cold it was outside, he stops when he brings up his gloves and almost goes a page describing the gloves and finishes what he’s saying by talking about how he would sock the person that would of stole his gloves. This type of thing often happens with two people having a conversation but in this case it’s only Holden that changes the topic while talking and he does it so often that you have to stop and remember what he was talking about before that got to what the text is talking about at that particular moment. My question is how do you go from talking about the weather to how you would sock the person that stole your gloves? It’s really mind-perplexing. But there’s almost a technique to the way he gets off topic. He’ll be saying something and stop because he brought something up that he also wants to talk about. Then when he wants to go back to what he was originally saying, he always says “Anyways…” And he does so often throughout the book.

These characteristics of Holden’s raise many philosophical questions for me. The first of these questions is: Is there a limit to generosity? My answer is that in my opinion, it’s always good to be generous, in general, meaning being willing to help out others. But you might find yourself in a certain situation where you just can’t be generous, where there is a limit to generosity. For me, to be a good person you have to be willing to help others and feel with others. But in some situations like with Holden and the elevator man’s scam, you just don’t want to be seen as the guy that gives away money. If you become the person that is seen by others as the kind person, that is willing to help, that’s willing to give away money or anything really, you become a person to be taken advantage of. And that’s the first thing people will begin to do to you, take advantage. The second philosophical question that Holden’s characteristics raised for me was: Is picking and choosing who you want to be generous to fair? Well, I believe that it depends on again the situation and who the people involved are. If the person that you’re going to help with money, for example, is rich then there is no reason to give them money. You’re better off being generous to a person that is in need of the money. But let’s say that it’s not money that you’re being generous with. Maybe its care, medical care or emotional care or whatever the case may be. In these cases it doesn’t matter the person is that you’re helping. The third philosophical question that Holden’s characteristics raised for me is: Is it wrong to be a different type of person on the outside than what is your real mentality on the inside? I think that it’s very unethical to be this way. Holden often pretended to be glad to meet somebody and tell the reader that he really wasn’t. The problem with this is that what you’re making yourself is fake image. If what you think and believe on the inside is the opposite of what you present on the inside, then the person that others meet is real a misrepresentation of yourself. And it’s just really unethical because if you live your whole life like that nobody would ever really meet the real you and you might even forget what you value because the disguise that you put onto yourself is so believable that it even gets in your own head and you forget who you are. The fourth question that Holden’s characteristics raise for me is: Is it ethical to criticize people when you yourself are not perfect? You have no right to talk about a person and speak about who you hate their flaws, like Holden did when you have your own flaws. If you have the right to criticize others than they have that same right and when you learn this you no longer criticize them because you don’t want to be criticized. Criticism is always okay to the person that uses it until it’s used on them.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger’s main character Holden Caulfield has many characteristics that he presents to the reader throughout the book. These characteristics raise many philosophical questions and ideas to be thought about.     

Critical Analysis Blog Post for “Designer Babies” by Patricia Smith

Critical Analysis Blog Post for “Designer Babies” by Patricia Smith

            The article “Designer Babies” by Patricia Smith explains that the day in which parents can select how their babies will look and be like is not far off and the possibility of such a thing happening is raising many ethical questions whether and how much we tamper with the way humans reproduce. Patricia Smith is trying to describe the situation to the reader and have the readers decide if parents being able to design a perfect baby a good idea? Smith uses many techniques to get her point across. The first of these techniques is explaining that may people are for the “designer baby”. She includes a quote from Dr. Alan Cooperman, director of the reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, saying, “Every time we get a little closer to genetic tinkering to promote health—that’s exciting and scary. People are afraid that it will turn into a dystopian brave new world. The most exciting part scientifically is to be able to fix or prevent an error in genetic machinery.” But Patricia Smith explains that also any more people are against the “designer baby”.  She says, “But others are sounding alarm bells”. Jeremy Gruber, president of the Council for Responsible Genetics makes the point that you’re permanently altering the genome of an individual and that will also become inheritable. He also says that he fears the procedure could take away positive traits. Josephine Johnson, an ethicist at the Hastings Center in New York says, “But the changes that play into social advantage, I hope people will pause and reconsider. It’s hard to know how you would resist the temptation to do those things, because they are the things that promise to give your child the edge in the competitive world.” All of the points she includes are very strong points to consider for a Socrates’ Café. The third technique that Patricia Smith uses to get her pint across is just to add plain old facts that support or diffuse the points made. She says, “Diseases that result from genetic defects…affect 12 million people in the United States alone. Scientists have already isolated the defective genes… holds out the possibility that some horrible disease could become a thing of the past.” She also includes a fact that states that some countries including Canada, Australia, France and Denmark have made laws preventing scientists from altering the human genome but in the U.S. there is no such type of law. She also adds that traits like intelligence, athleticism, and sociability are very complex and involve interactions between many different genes, and scientists are still far from knowing what those genes are and how they affect behavior. My question is then how do they plan on making the designer baby? She also adds another craft ad that is talking and relating the topic to history. She describes that history is full of examples of genetic science running amok. She also says the troubling past is why some people are saying ethical boundaries must be made.

            With this article Patricia Smith really wanted to explain to the reader that the topic of a “Designer Baby” is very controversial ethically. She wants to show the reader the day in which parents can chose how their children will turn out is near and many people aren’t taking it lightly. Some are for it while many are against it from happening for the many reasons I described in the above paragraph. She uses many craft moves to achieve this goal. One writing move that many people that are writing articles about serious topics use is using quotes from important people. Throughout the whole article Patricia Smith quotes many important people including: Dr. Alan Copperman, director of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City; Jeremy Gruber, president of the Council for Responsible Genetics, a bioethics group; Zhao Bowen, who id the twenty-one year old who heads the research project; and Josephine Johnson, an ethicist at the Hastings Center in Hudson, New York. All of these people have a title that makes them official, that makes their words trustworthy, and that gives the overall writing of the article an “official and trustworthy stamp” source. When readers read the names of those quoted and the title connected to those names they immediately get the affect I just described. Another craft the Patricia Smith uses to complete her goal is use a drawing of a potential “designer baby” dressed up as a superhero. It’s meant to be funny but send a message. The cute, blue cap-wearing baby almost seems like a joke or a fantasy but by putting it with her writing Patricia Smith is trying to say to the reader-no- this is a reality and sooner or later it will happen. When the reader looks at it they get a laugh out of it but also take into consideration: what is a perfect baby? Is this a joke or reality? It connects to the writing which is trying to stress that it’s a reality. Patricia Smith’s other craft is her subtitle. It says, “Science may soon allow parents to assemble a more perfect baby. Is that a good idea?” This lets the reader decide his answer before reading the rest of the article but also going into the article with his own perspective and then learning the facts. Another craft that Patricia Smith uses is a final idea to leave the reader thinking. Her final statement is a quote from Jeremy Gruber saying, “We’re still far enough away to make sure we have appropriate safeguards in place to make sure science is used in the public interest. We have the time to do that, but there doesn’t seem to be enough interest.” Usually when an author ends with a quote they agree with it. So Jeremy Gruber and Patricia Smith for ending with the quote, agree that there’s time to stop this “designing babies” from happening but that the reader needs to take action to get the story to the rest of the world to gain interest in the topic and to ultimately work together to stop a “designer baby” from happening. Another craft move that Patricia Smith uses is an introduction that begins with a “What if…” statement. She begins the article by saying, “What if parents could select the traits their children will be endowed with, picking from a catalog of options like ‘tall’, ‘high IQ’, ‘athletic’, or ‘musical’?” This introduction is used as a transition into the article; Patricia Smith uses it to get into the whole “It is possible…” story. She used the “what if…” statement as a transition. And in this way all of these craft moves work together to meet what Patricia Smith wants the reader to think and feel after reading the article.

            I find this topic very interesting and worthy of going under debate as being a very controversial topic. Patricia Smith seems to be against the “designer baby” and I’m going to have to agree for ethical reasons. I feel like it will be a very big scientific break-through if it happens I just think it is unethical to happen. I ‘m going to have to say Patricia Smith’s writing techniques and craft moves convinced me. 

Critical Analysis of “Should Chimps Have Rights?” by Veronica Majerol for 5/9/2014

Critical Analysis of “Should Chimps Have Rights?” by Veronica Majerol for 5/9/2014

            “Should Chimps Have Rights?” by Veronica Majerol explains that many people say chimps have such humanlike intelligence that they should be recognized as “legal persons”, a prerequisite for having rights. But the article also explains that the idea of giving chimps rights is very controversial and that many others believe chimps shouldn’t have rights. To explain all of the ideas needed for the reader to understand the article, Veronica Majerol includes many techniques and details. The first of these techniques is to include that there are many people around the world that are for rights for chimps. The first example of her doing this is, “ A Boston-based group called the Nonhuman Rights Project is trying to change how the law views chimps like Tommy. The group says chimps have such a humanlike intelligence that they should be recognized as ‘legal persons.’”  Another example is when she quotes Steven Wise, NhRP’s president for saying, “Chimpanzees are perhaps the most autonomous beings in the universe after us human beings…we argue that judges should value them and view them as legal persons the way they value us and view us as legal persons.’”  The third example is when she quotes Wise again for saying, “ ‘The right that we believe they should have most of all is the right of bodily liberty, they should be able to…choose how to live their lives the way we choose how to live our lives.” The second technique that Majerol uses to support her claim in the article is many other people around the world are against rights for chimps. For example, she says, “But not everyone agrees with NhRP’s efforts to win rights for chimps.” She includes this, “ tommy’s owner, Pat Lavery, says he rescued Tommy from a neglectful owner a decade ago and denies the chimps is mistreated or unhappy.” Thus the chimp doesn’t need rights. Richard Cupp, a professor says, “There’s a danger in making a jump to say they’re just like people, if were really focused on chimpanzees being very, very smart … than maybe someday we can say here’s a not smart human maybe chimps have a higher intelligence level than him.’” To support and explain each of these opinions and points of views, Veronica Majerol’s third technique is to make sure to include important, related facts and statistics. For example, she says, “You’ve probably heard the term ‘animal rights’ but animals don’t actually have rights in the U.S.  Federal and state animal-welfare laws punish people who mistreat or neglect animals, but that’s not the same as chimps having rights to liberty or anything else.” She also includes the fact, “ Scientists have determined that chimps and humans share 99 percent of their DNA. Like humans, chimps are social creatures capable of self- aware ness, empathy, altruism, and cooperation.” Veronica Majerol’s fourth move is to make sure to describe real chimps around the world. She says, “on behalf of Tommy and three other privately owned chimps in New York,” and continues to tell these chimps’ stories. She also includes,  “Understanding chimp intelligence has led to huge changes worldwide in how the animals are treated. Only the U.S. and the African nation of Gabon currently allow biomedical experiment on chimps.” She is explaining the stories of the current chimp situation around the world. The fifth of her techniques to support her claim in the article is to describe the strategy of the Nonhuman Rights Project, which started this fight for rights for chimpanzees. She includes a long paragraph about the legal strategy that they take to reach an agreement with the judges, whom will ultimately decide whether chimpanzees will be given rights or not. 

            With this article, Veronica Majerol tried to make the reader think and feel that it’s a truly controversial topic, this that is being argued about chimpanzees. Many believe that they should be given rights while others disagree with this idea. To achieve this want through the article, Veronica Majerol utilizes multiple craft moves The first of these craft moves to achieve her goal of influencing the readers thinking and feelings is beginning the article with a story about a chimpanzee. Here’s the story, “Tommy, a 26-year-old chimp lives in a small cement cage in a used-trailer sales lot in Gloversville, New York. Retired from movie work and whatever else once occupied him, he has no chimp friends to keep him company—just a TV. Tommy is worlds away from the rainforests of Western Africa, where chimps spend most of their lives in trees, sleeping, hunting, and socializing together. His owner hasn’t broken any laws but a Boston-based group called the Nonhuman Rights Project is trying to change how the law views chimps like Tommy.” She includes this story to give the reader a sense of the issue by giving an example of the life of a living chimpanzee. It’s trying to explain what’s wrong with the chimpanzee situation of the present using a story that the reader can imagine, understand and visualize. The second of the craft moves she uses to complete her goal is that she adds a quote for the reader to think about before finishing the article, this is something that she has done before in her previous writings in Upfront articles. The quote is, “ ‘those of us who treasure our own fundamental rights, we have to think of where did they come from, why do we have them, can they be taken away? If we arbitrarily deprive beings that are autonomous of their autonomy, then we can begin arbitrarily depriving each other of our autonomy as well.’” I personally found the quote very interesting, and something to think about and that’s the exact affect that Veronica Majerol wanted it to have on the reader. It leaves the reader thinking before throwing the article down. The read tries to answer the question, neither Veronica Majerol or the person that she’d quoting is telling you how to think but allows you to answer the question according to the way that you believe is right after what you have read.  Her third of craft moves to achieve her goal is that she adds two photos of chimps showing intelligence and intellectuality. The first of these photos is a chimpanzee with his arm on his chin, a motion humans do when they’re thinking, symbolizing that their wisdom and intelligence is similar to that of humans. The second photo is that of a chimpanzee working on a computer touch screen, which is testing a chimp’s ability to recognize objects at Tokyo University in Japan. He points at objects matching them with photos on the computer. These give the reader a visualization of chimps, the issue and an insight on an argument for rights for chimps. It also relates to what is being talked about around the images, which is how smart chimps actually are. The fourth is that she includes a box of information with the second photo that I described. The box is titled “ How Smart Are Chimps? Includes information comparing chimp intelligence and human intelligence. It simply answers the question in the title. Thus, gives the reader an understanding of chimp intelligence.

            The article definitely influenced my ideas on chimpanzee rights. I personally believe that much of the information that Veronica Majerol used was biased because her personally opinion was that chimps need to have rights. But what can I say from what I know about the topic from the article, I believe that I’m in the middle. I think the best solution for everybody in the situation is to give him or her limited rights, but saying that they should have the same rights as humans is sort of going overboard. Majerol even explains that they can also not do many of the things humans can.

Critical Analysis on "Move..Or Else" for April 25th, 2014

Non-Fiction Critical Analysis Blog Post for April 25^th, 2014

“Chinese culture has traditionally been rural-based, once the villages are gone, the culture is gone.”

            “Move…Or Else” by Ian Johnson explains that in China, millions of people are being ordered with their families to move by government officials that show up at their houses. It also explains that these people didn’t get any say about it and about where they were going. Ian also adds that many are forced to give up their jobs and switch schools while their homes get bulldozed. Ian Johnson also implies that this is all in an effort to move China away from an agricultural country government and into an urbanized one. Ian Johnson uses many details and techniques to support this. One of the techniques he uses is that he implies that many, especially those already in urban areas and others who support the government are for the effort for change. He also explains their point of view and plans. For example he says, “The government hopes that the move—one of the largest human relocations in history—will boost the country’s massive economy, which has recently started to slow down.” Another example of this is when he says, “But China’s government says the country needs to urbanize faster. Officials want at least 70 percent of the nation’s 1.4 billion people—the largest population in the world—living in cities by 2025. The idea is that more city-dwellers will mean more people spending money, making China’s economy less dependent on exports for growth.” A third example of this technique is when he quotes one government official saying, “ ‘If half of China’s population starts consuming, growth is inevitable, right now they are living in rural areas, where they do not consume.’” He follows up on his by saying, “Some of the relocated residents like their lives. Yang Huashuai, 25, appreciates the opportunity he’s been given to make his fortune in Huaming. He works as an electrician and a cab driver.” From my understanding of the situation I feel everybody in China’s opinion depends on how much farming is sentimentally important to them. A second detail Johnson uses is he also explains that many more are against the forced relocation. He goes on to also explain their point of view and an argument for their claim. For example he says, “But many worry that the forced migration will create even bigger problems for China for generations to come. Either way, it will change the country forever.” He also explains the very crazy fact that, “In recent years, dozens of people have set themselves on fire rather than move.” Obviously to me, families rarely get sympathy from local officials. Johnson also says, “Rural residents who do move are given free apartments and compensation payments. But for many of them, that isn’t enough to start a new life in the city.” Wei Dushen says, “We know how to farm but not how to work in an office, those [jobs] are for educated people.” He Shifang also says, “There’s nothing to do anymore, up in the mountains we worked all the time. We had pigs and chickens. Here we just sit around.” Obviously, many don’t like the forced relocation. Now to support all of these claims, Ian Johnson makes sure to include facts for the reader to make their opinion and fully understand. For example, “This rapid urbanization means that villages are disappearing at a rate of about 300 a day. In 2000, China had 3.7 million villages, according to research by Tianjin University. By 2010, that figure dropped to 2.6 million. ” A second set of facts he includes are, “Economically, today’s China is a global powerhouse, driven by a manufacturing boom. It sometimes seems like everything Americans buy is made in China—from clothing to cellphones to refrigerators. About 70 percent of goods Walmart sells are made in China. In 2010, China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-biggest economy after the United States; currently has the fastest-growing middle class in the world.” Ian Johnson’s fourth technique is also to support it by adding historically-related facts.  Here is the chunk of history included in the article: “Modern China was born 65 years ago, when Mao Zedong’s Communist forces won a civil war and founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Over the next three decades, the country endured great turmoil as Mao’s Communist economic and social policies were implemented. By the time Mao died in 1976, China’s economy was in ruins. In 1978, his successor, Deng Xiaoping, introduced free-market reforms that opened up the economy and led to three decades of explosive growth.” To add on to all of this, he adds the effect of the whole event.

            With this article, Ian Johnson tried to make the reader think and feel that it’s a true problem and controversial event, what is going on in China. He wants to explain the sides to the controversial event, add facts, include history and describe the effect of the problem to do this. And to achieve all of this Ian Johnson utilizes multiple craft moves. One of the craft moves he uses is using a question as a transition. He says the question, “What does all this have to do with forcing millions of farmers to move into cities?” He says this after describing China’s economy and before explaining how China wants to transform its economy through forcing urbanization. The effect of this is that this is compelling and gets the reader engaged in the topic. The reader answers the question in their head before reading on to see the facts that Johnson includes to truly answer the question. This way they can transition from one topic to the next while connecting and understanding and still staying engaged. Along with a picture of Chinese people doing a traditional dance in traditional Chinese clothing Ian Johnson includes, “Will traditions die out as villages are bulldozed? A new year celebration in eastern China.” This move is to leave the reader to decide their answer after reading the article because it connects to what is written in the article of course. He includes this connecting note in the article, “A government project has catalogued roughly 9,700 examples of ‘intangible cultural heritage’—traditional songs, dances, rituals, martial arts, and theater. About 80 percent of them are rural. As villages are torn down to make room for new cities, many of China’ social traditions are disappearing along with them. There may be no way to get them back. He also quotes Feng Jicai, an author and Chinese scholar, for saying, “Chinese culture has traditionally been rural-based, once the villages are gone, the culture is gone.” I personally believe this summarizes the issue and I believe that Ian Johnson included it specifically at the end of the article to conclude with and to also hint at his own personal opinion without specifically saying it. Another craft that he includes is after talking about China’s economy he includes in the side-bar a comparison of China and the U.S. economy wise. It says that in China the population is 1.4 billion while it’s only 313 million in the U.S. The percentage of the population living in urban areas in China is 51 percent while it’s 82 percent in the U.S. The GDP in China is 13 trillion and in the U.S. it’s 17 trillion. In China the per capita GDP is $9,100 and in the U.S. it’s $51,700. And in China 12 years are spent in school while in the U.S. the average is 17 years. These charts that are included in the sidebar give the reader a visual explanation and comparison of the two economies. He also includes a picture of a hardworking farmer in Huaming plowing land in the shadow of new high-rise apartments. The image just shows how much will be taken away from the Chinese farming culture that is traditional to many Chinese people. Ian Johnson also includes a map on the second page of the article in the Upfront magazine that specifically explains the forced urbanization and exactly what it means for China. It definitely helps the reader better understand the article. The final craft that Ian Johnson uses to achieve getting the reader to believe his claim is giving the reader a situation to picture. He begins the article by saying, “Imagine government officials showing up at your house and ordering your family to move. You don’t get any say about where you’re going. Your parents have to give up their jobs, and you have to switch schools. Then they bulldoze your house. That’s exactly what’s happening to millions of people in China. This helps to put a figurative image in the reader’s mind to see what those that are being forced to move are going through as a result of the situation in China and helps you relate to them, it seems like almost a bias move on the author, Ian Johnson’s hand.

            After reading this article I definitely realized that the situation in other countries is very different than the one in the United States. I couldn’t imagine being forced out of my home and way of life to go in my case do the opposite of what I’m used to, which for me would be farming. So I understand how hard it is on the farmers in China that are being forced to urbanize, especially since for many of them it’s been a way a life for years and has been passed down from generation to generation. Overall, I believe that the article was very well written and crafted and written on such an interesting topic and I’m sure that it has shaped my thinking, I’m definitely against the forced urbanization especially because it’s just that: forced. And so I also believe I agree with Ian Johnson, because I explained he made slightly biased moves in his writing that pushed me toward the final opinion that I took on the issue.      

“Bagging Plastic” Critical Analysis

“Bagging Plastic” Critical Analysis

            “Bagging Plastic” by Veronica Majerol explains the dilemma of using plastic bags. Veronica Majerol explains that most of us usually carry our groceries home in disposable plastic bags without much thought. Majerol goes on to explain the viewpoints of those for and against banning plastic bags. Majerol uses many things to support this. One thing that she includes is that Majerol implies that many people are for a ban on plastic bags. For example, “‘The idea that we grab for a plastic bag in a grocery store has become a part of our culture,’ says zola berger-Schmitz…The bans, she says, are “about trying to reduce pollution little by little.’” Simply, she is for the bans. To support the idea that plastic bags have a negative effect she quotes, “‘we no longer live in a world where we can pretend that what we do on land doesn’t affect the ocean,’ says John Hocevar, a marine biologist at Greenpeace.” She also talks of the many places where ther are already bans on plastic, for example, “In the U.S., environmentalists have also been targeting disposable plastic bottles. The town of Concord, Massachusettes, the Grand Canyon and several other national parks, and some universities now ban the sale of plastic watter bottles. This month, San Fransisco began banning their sale on public property.” But, Majerol does admit and shows that there are also very many people who are opposed to a ban being passed against the “convenient” plastic. She says, “Mark Daniels of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, which represents the U.S. plastic bag manufacturing and recycling industry, thinks the bans are misguided. He says 9 out of 10 Americans reuse plastic bags for things like packing lunch, lining trash cans, and picking up after their dogs.” Again she gives another opinion, “‘Environmentalists truly think every single person is going to leave their house in the morning with their reusable bag because they want to get something at CVS.’” This statement of course is a sarcastic one. Another supporter says, “The industry also makes an economic argument against the bans:More than 30,000 people across the U.S. have jobs related to plastic bag manufacturing and recycling, says Daniel, and bans jeopardize those jobs.” This is a general opinion of all of those connected to the industry. And as Majerol explains, “There’s even a movement to ban the bans [on plastic].” But to support all of this Majerol includes many facts. For example, “More than 100 U.S. countries and major cities—like San Francisco, Seattle, and Austin—now have bans on plastic shopping bags.” She also includes this one, “Americans use about 100 billion plastic bags each year…generated about 32 million tons of plastic waste…and recycled only about 9 percent of it.” She also includes alternate solutions other than bans, “Of course, bans aren’t the only way to cut plastic use.”  Majerol uses all of these techniques to support her original claim.

            With this article, Veronica Majerol tried to make the reader think and feel that it is a true problem how much plastic waste is made by plastic bags. But she does want the reader to realize some are opposed to the plastic while others, many of them, too, are opposed to a ban. To achieve this, Veronica Majerol utilizes multiple craft moves. The first of these craft moves is using a question as a transition: she starts a paragraph, with a new topic, “Are plastic bags also a drain on natural resources?” This is compelling and gets the reader engaged in the topic. The reader answers the question in their head before reading on to see the facts that Majerol includes to answer the question. Another craft move: along with a picture of three men holding multiple bags, Majerol poses the question, “Can Americans give up plastic bags?” This move is to leave the reader to decide their answer to this question after Majerol includes all of the evidence, quotes, opinions and facts that she wants to in the article and they read the article. A third craft move is Veronica Majerol starts the article with a relatable thought, “Most of us do it every day without much thought: buy things and carry them home in disposable plastic bags,” with which most of the readers will agree, or at least I do.  This technique of including something relatable to start the story gets the reader to think and relate but also almost leads the track they will take to ultimately het to their final opinion on a topic. This is a great craft move to use both as an introductory statement and even a concluding statement to keep the reader interested. A forth craft move that Veronica Majerol utilizes is ending the article with a questionable and interesting idea that she quotes, “‘ In a city where dog owners are forced to pick up their pets’ waste and are precluded from smoking in parks,’ Rosenthal writes, ‘why is it so hard to get people to employ reusable bags for shopping?’” This is a questionable and debatable question that the reader can continue to think about and even try to answer after reading all about the topic. But ultimately the point of that craft move is to leave the reader thinking, which is exactly what it does well. Another technique that Majerol uses is including a photograph of a scavenger man paddling through a plastic-strewn waterway in the Phillipines. This is a strong image and was very well chosen for the topic, it shows the reader what the problem with plastic is. She also includes two plastic bags containing facts. One states “100 billion—number of plastic bags Americans use each year.” And the other says, “90%--percentage of Americans who reuse plastic shopping bags.” These were just nice interesting touches.

            After reading “Bagging Plastic” by Veronica Majerol, I definitely think that the plastic bag dilemma is a real problem for everybody. At my house we already reuse plastic bags but it was never really for a positive reason, I don’t thin, it was just for our own needs. But I now realize that it’s a very big problem.  

             

The Blind Side Blog Post

The Blind Side Blog Post-  “ When people first saw Big Mike they immediately became afraid of him, but what they didn’t really know was that he was more afraid of them.”

So far I’ve only read five chapters in Michael Lewis’s true story, “The Blind Side”. But already I’ve learned a lot about the main character “Big Mike”, really Michael Oher, and his flaws. I also caught on to a theme in the book. Big Mike is not the average size of a high school student and his size gives him a reputation from people without them even hearing his voice! The Blind Side is not just about an amazing athlete but the person beneath all of that.

Michael Oher is a very unique person. Big Mike’s biggest traits include being huge, being very silent and very shy, and having a lack of intelligence. Big Mike’s silence is something it seems like he just can’t control. When Michael faced the best football scout in the country, Tom Lemming, this is what happened: “What happened next was the strangest encounter of Lemming’s twenty-seven-year football scouting career. Michael Oher sat down at the table across from him…and refused to speak. ‘He shook my hand and then didn’t say a word,’ said Lemming (‘His hands: they were huge!’) Lemming asked him the usual questions. ‘What colleges are you interested in?’… “What do you want to major in?’, and ‘where do you think you’ll be in ten years?’ They were met by silence.” This trait is visible everywhere. When Big Mike walks the halls of Briarcrest Christian School his completely silent and in the classroom he doesn’t speak. Now to the second big trait that Michael Oher has: his size. From his nickname, “Big Mike”, you now he’s big but just how big? Big Mike is exactly six-foot-five-inches and three hundred and forty four pounds and this is in the ninth grade. He’s described as a “giant” and a “wall”. When he first meets Hugh Freeze, the athlete director at the Briarcrest Christian School this is how the encounter goes down: “‘Big Mike! Come on in here!’ Hugh Freeze will never forget the next few seconds ‘He just peeks around the corner, with his head down.’ Hugh didn’t get a good first look—it was just a silver of him but suggested an improbably large whole. Then Michael Oher stepped around the corner and into his office. Good God! He’s a monster!”  Just one more example, when Leah Anne Tuohy, who would later adopt Big Mike with her husband Sean Tuohy, was shopping for Michael she called her husband to say, “Do you know how big a size fifty-eight long jacket is…too small.” In other words a size fifty-eight suit jacket did not fit Big Mike. A size fifty-eight long jacket is huge; the biggest person I personally know wears a fifty long jacket and that is huge. So there’s a comparison, I could only imagine wearing a fifty-eight jacket, I wear a forty-jacket. So, the last trait is that Big Mike is not very intelligent. The book says, “Still, when the file on Michael Oher from the Memphis City school system hit his desk, Simpson was frankly incredulous. The boy had a measured IQ of 80, which put him in mankind’s ninth-percentile. That means only nine percent of the world had an IQ lower than Big Mikes. It also says, “In his first nine years of school Michael Oher had been enrolled in eleven different institutions, and that included a hole of eighteen months, around the age of ten, when he apparently did not attend school at all.” This part was shocking to me; I was surprised that Big Mike missed so much school and changed schools so much. Finally, it says, “The grade point average the boy would bring with him to Briarcrest began with a zero: 0.6.” But these traits only make Big Mie special and unique in his own way.

People give a false reputation to Big Mike because of his physical attributes and special traits and others even think too much of him. For example, “When Sean Tuohy first spotted Michael Oher sitting in the stands in the Briarcrest gym, staring at basketball practice, he saw a boy with nowhere to go but up. The question is how to take him there.” This was a very surprising line to me because you don’t usually and actually shouldn’t make an assumption about someone especially before you even met the person. I don’t disagree that Big Mike is very talented, in fact today he’s a NFL left tackle who just recently signed with the Minnesota Vikings, but I just don’t agree with the way people immediately make an opinion on a person before they meet them. I think this often troubled Big Mike; in fact he wasn’t even into football before people pushed him to play because of his size. Another example of this is, “Briarcrest offered a class in weightlifting, and Jennifer Graves had gotten him into it on an assumption it might offer him some relief from relentless failure. If there was one class Big Mike should have been able to ace, this was it. But the weightlifting teacher, Coach Mark Boggess, said that the boy was neglecting even to change into gym clothes.” This is a great example of a wide assumption that Jennifer Graves just made because of Big Mike’s size. I think it’s unfair that Big Mike was forced to take this elective class even when he never chose it and I actually agree with the way he responded he didn’t even want to be in the class in the firs place. A third great example of this same thing is, “ When people first saw Big Mike they immediately became afraid of him, but what they didn’t really know was that he was more afraid of them.” This is the perfect description of the point that I’m trying to make, just because of his size it doesn’t mean that Big Mike is a monster or something else that’s very scary. Again the track and field coach says, “From the moment he’d laid eyes on Michael Oher, Coach Boggess thought he might invite him onto the track team as a shot putter. He was shaped like a shot putter and also like the shot itself, round and heavy.  It hadn’t occurred to Boggess to ask Big Mike to throw anything else”. Again his size gives Big Mike a reputation all its own.  

But Big Mike proved all of these people wrong; in fact Big Mike is actually an athletic phenomenon who is bigger than a center in basketball and faster than the point guard. This guy is awesome. He’s not just a big, fat guy like many people thought he was. He also is just a unique person in the way he learns and in the way that he communicates. As I mentioned before today is an amazing left tackle and was recently signed with the Minnesota Vikings after leaving the Baltimore Ravens for free agency. Big Mike is actually just a kind and shy guy who lived a tough childhood but is definitely an amazing athlete. On page 77 it says, “When Coach Boggess led him out Briarcrest’s back door and onto the old grass field for the first meet, he sensed, rightly, that Michael Oher was witnessing track and field for the first time in his life.” Only seconds later was Big Mike throwing discusses like he was a professional and was doing things that couldn’t be taught. To show how impressive of an athlete Big Mie really was, “One afternoon he took a sack of footballs out to midfield. Standing on the fifty-yard line he threw them, one by one, though the goalposts at the back of the end zone. Here was a kid, a sophomore in high school, shaped nothing like a quarterback, chucking the ball 70-75 yards. And making it look easy.” Big Mike is one heck of an athlete and he did an amazing job of showing people who he really was and teaching them that they didn’t need to assume that he could do a certain thing or was a certain way for the way he looked.

Big Mike is one very unique person, he is huge and quiet and not very intelligent but is an amazing athlete. He’s shaped like a center in the NBA and is faster than a point guard in the game. But because of his physical appearance and special traits people often made false assumptions of Big Mike but he did a great job of proving those people wrong and showing who he really was.