Give me death! I mean... errr... Liberty!

Liberty or death were the choices that American colonists faced in the late 1700s. With the British in Boston and much of the leadership nervous and afraid, they weren’t sure what they could do. This stayed the case until Patrick Henry came along and campaigned hard to revolt against the tyranny of the British and to fight for their God given right of liberty (although this doctrine didn’t apply to slaves as they weren’t considered people). Henry was the right man who spoke with the right words that were delivered at the right time in order to incite revolution. he spoke boldly with his most memorable line being, “…give me liberty or give me death!” (this also functioned as his closing line). When this speech was delivered, it was during a convention in 1775 that was being held in Virginia. Assigned with deciding what they could do about the British, Henry lept up onto a table and told his audience how he felt and what he thought needed to happen. He got them riled up in a few different ways. The biggest would be his tone which was quite exclamatory and passionate. He asked a number of rhetorical questions aimed at getting the men in the room to think and consider how important quick and decisive action would be. After this, he went through a list of actions the group had taken so that war could be avoided, and by citing their failures, it showed them that maybe their only choice was to listen to Henry and go to war. 

Henry desired liberty, and the only way he believed this could be achieved was by convincing the men in front of him that war was their only option. Henry was successful in this design because the war actually happened, and was notably won by these patriots who arguably were originally riled up and encouraged by Henry. 

Tow #5 CATS

Cats. Cats, cats, cats. The article I’ve chosen is about how and why these furry friends have taken over the internet. It seems that as far back as I can think, the most consistently funny thing on the internet has been a cat video or some cat related image. Exactly why is this? Author Abigail Tucker investigates.

Tucker is a writer for the New York times and has also written a book about cats in another light; she is the owner of a few cats and even runs Instagram pages for them (one has over 40,000 followers). She has also written at other newspapers like the Smithsonian and New Yorker, so I think tucker is a credible source on the topic.

I think this text was written for anyone else who is surprised that cats have stood their ground and kept their monopoly on digital humor. People haven’t thought much about it, but when you read the title of this article we all sit back and become curious as to the reason regarding the longevity of this phenomenon. So in the end, I think that this was written for all people who use the internet.

This was written like an argumentative essay, providing proof, studies, evidence, citing experts and so on and so forth.  All of these appeal to logos as opposed pathos, as, in this case, Tucker believed rational reason more effective than feelings. What these stats also do is eliminate the idea that this viewpoint is an opinion while it is actually a fact, where someone can’t say “you’re wrong because I feel like I’ve seen more dogs online and find dogs funnier” because Tucker has statistics and facts to back up her point.

I think the purpose of this article was clear; to get explain the dominance of cats on the internet. Her appeal to logos was extremely strong as well and I believe she built a sound argument throughout this article. 

Tow #4

Malcom X’s The Autobiography of Malcom X has proven to be an extremely interesting book this far. As the title would suggest, my book is about the life and times of Malcom X, the man who went from a criminal drug peddler to one of the most iconic leaders of the Black Revolution. Despite this book being an autobiography, X is not a completely reliable author. He is completely biased in his views of himself and only presents to us what he chooses, so this whole point of view should be taken with a grain of salt. 

This book was written for the people who both viewed Malcom X in a positive and negative light. The audience directly links to the purpose, which I believe is to clear up the smudges on X’s name and disprove inaccurate claims against him. Malcom X was viewed by millions of people as a black man that hated all white people, no matter the circumstance. Malcom X attempts to clear his name by using aphorisms and using anecdotes to illustrate how he felt and why. X uses these two techniques together and often. In the second chapter, titled, “Mascot”, Malcom X tells a story about a teacher that told him he’d never become a lawyer despite his excellent grades because he was black and needed to choose something more “realistic” (his teacher recommended he become a carpenter instead). He then follows the anecdote up with the lines, “…but apparently I was not intelligent enough, in their eyes, to become whatever I wanted to be” (X 37). These two devices get X’s point across by presenting the situation (in the form of the anecdote) and then revealing the effect the situation had on him (in the form of the aphorisms) so the audience can better understand the influences and mindset of Malcom X. 

I believe that Malcom X has indeed completed his purpose as he walks the reader through his decisions, reactions, and feelings thoroughly. The point of this book is to present the reader with X’s experiences and emotions, but not to tell the reader how to feel about them. This allows the reader to come to their own conclusions about X, which X probably hopes are positive. 

TOW #3 (Visual Text Political Cartoon)

This presidential election is proving itself to be historic and unprecedented in the number of twists and turns that occur in the story. This week I chose for a political cartoon to be my piece of visual media. The cartoon depicts a few different things; one is of Hillary Clinton who is being fed Anti-bodies and Bernie Sanders’ supporters’ tears through an IV drip, the next is of a debate moderator who is putting starch on his back bone, afterwards there is a voter who is literally picking their poison, and finally we have Trump tweeting and practicing his pronunciation of the word “huge” which often comes out as “yuge”. 

This cartoon was drawn by a man named Nate Beeler. He is a cartoonist as well as a journalist and won the 2009 Thomas Nast Award from the Overseas Press Club and the 2008 Berryman Award from the National Press Foundation along with other awards. This cartoon is definitely catered to a wide audience. I’d believe that its audience is anyone who wants to get the current gist of what is going in the 2016 Presidential election. I’d say its a pretty accurate and humorous depiction of the current standings of this election. People are feeling trapped between two candidates who are extremely different and equally unlikeable. 

Every humorous cartoon will have to, in some way or another, use allusion in order for the audience to “get it” or have something to “get”. This cartoon features indirect references to the plight of Bernie Sanders’ supporters not getting their candidate and being forced to vote for Clinton, a reference to Hillary Clinton’s imperfect health, the common predicament of undecided hopeless voters to find the lesser of two evils, and a few others. What these references do for Beeler is to show that he understands what we’re going through as a nation, and while he may not offer any solutions in this piece, he can still empathize with us and knows where we’re coming from. 

As you can see, upon deeper investigation, this is a well rounded cartoon. Beeler is able to cover all of the major parties involved, show the audience what’s going on and how a large percentage of people feel about it, and also convey all of this in a humorous tone. I think the major key in this is to do all of this while being humorous as this is the general attract for cartoonists. When all of this is considered, I’d say Beeler definitely accomplishes his purpose. 

Tow #2

 

Modest Models

      The article was written about a rather personal and pretty interesting topic. Underwraps is a fashion designing company that was started by Nailah Lymus, an American Muslim living in Brooklyn. The article covers what its like running a Muslim modeling agency centered around modesty (which in fashion isn’t too common). The article was written by Judith Thurman, a writer since 1987 and joined The New Yorker in 2007. She’s even written en essay that landed itself in the 2003 edition of “The Best American Essays” Series. She has written a number of pieces on fashion, highlighting profile pieces of couturiers like Yves Saint Laurent and Coco Chanel. 

This well crafted article is written in a universally accepting fashion, welcoming all lovers of fashion and style. The point of the article was to show that there is a way for women to be fashionable while also dressing modestly (In our community, women are just as big on fashion as any other. I can personally attest to this). The audience is then revealed to be anyone who would disagree with this gracious truth, providing them with both success stories and photos proving that unique and personalized style is universal. 

As far as rhetorical devices go, this article was pretty light on them. It was more like an interview of the two women who founded the agency. Not much wit, not anything that unique in the mood or tone sections either. 

The author’s purpose when writing this text was clear. Thurman wanted to put the popular stigma with Muslim women front and center and discuss it in the open. She wants to show that women can be hijabis yet still dress elegantly and beautifully. One of the strongest ways that she supports this claim is the beautiful array of models and photos that are shown throughout the article in between paragraphs. They are the perfect complement that truly drive the point home, a claim is nothing without proper evidence. 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/19/modest-models

Tow #1 (Non Fiction)

Donald Trump’s Ideology of Applause

The article that I chose to write my first T.O.W. on was an interesting one. Rather than simply bashing Donald Trump and his impromptu sand-castle of a campaign, this article took a deeper look into the motivations of the candidate and what it really is that he wants. This New York Times article was written by an Op-ed Columnist named Frank Bruni. He is known for writing pieces that are mostly political while others speak of the LGBT rights movement and college education. 

This article is a simple read and is clearly written for a specific audience consisting of staunch Trump supporters, disgusted Trump critics, and confused voters who have no idea what to think. Hitting on truly all things Trump, this article is full of truths takes a more level headed approach to discussing the man than many other articles on the internet or on TV. It opens with one of Trumps well known public blunders; his open admiration for and from President Vladimir Putin. Continuing on from here, Bruni delves into why Trump supports Putin using some of Trump’s other quotes and what he has done in the past to explain these wild statements. Beyond citing outside sources for his substance, Bruni also uses hypophora and parataxis to get his point across in a stylish and definite way. 

Hypophora comes into play mostly in a single paragraph, but it definitely makes the paragraph stand out. Bruni asks, “Detailed policies? Those could come later… A sophisticated campaign operation? Any dweeb could put that together” (Bruni 13).  These sentences show the nonchalance that we’ve come to expect from Trump. It represents accurately his level of emotion and low regard for these important aspects of a solid campaign. Parataxis is used throughout the article in ways such as, “Trump led the polls.” (Bruni 13) or, “And no cause is nobler than his elevation.” (Bruni 21) What these short sentences do is give a feeling of explicitness like Bruni is saying plainly ‘It is what it is.’ 

I believe that through these methods as well as his applicable and extensive evidence, Bruni has achieved his purpose. He showed in great detail how Trump’s campaign is more about pure adulation for its leader than providing a concise plan of action for America’s future. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/opinion/sunday/donald-trumps-ideology-of-applause.html?ref=opinion

IRB Intro

I've chosen for my first book to be a bit of a personal challenge. I decided to read The Autobiography of Malcom X which is a book about the famous Nation of Islam Leader. I've tried to read this book couple of times but have never gone all the way through. Hopefully, this will be the successful attempt as I'm more mature and capable of taking on a book of this magnitude.

Essay Post 3

The Lives of a Cell

Lewis Thomas

Man is apart of nature. We were not made separately or exclusively above much of anything in nature, and this is the claim that Lewis Thomas makes. Thomas was an American biologist, etymologist, and poet. The Lives if a Cell is an essay where Thomas reflecting bout man and how he views himself with the animal kingdom and as the superior of all living things on the Earth. While this is what Thomas is talking about, he is actually arguing the opposite in this essay. Thomas believes that man has subscribed to this geocentric and self-centered view of the universe where we believe that we are in control. Thomas wrote this essay to argue the point that all of human kind has to take a step back and realize that our place is not at the top of the mountain. 

This essay was written to any person who believes that man is separate from the natural world. One of the ways that lewis Thomas fulfills his purpose for writing this essay is by going through and breaking down different operations of our body that we have no control over. For example, in the fourth and fifth paragraphs, Thomas talks about primitive bacteria called mitochondrion that break down food and supply the body with energy. But whats unique about this organelle is that it isn’t bases from human cells; its actually an older bacteria that now lives inside of our cells but with separate DNA and RNA. Thomas spins this point as showing how nature even lives within us and helps us function. It’s truly a testament that shows that despite all of our creations and all of our creativity, we can’t do it all by ourselves. 

I think that Thomas got his point across in this essay. His argument at first were a bit ambiguous and broad, but over the course of the essay and by using examples, he narrowed it down to a digestible idea. 

Essay Post 2

Bop

Langston Hughes

Bop is a piece that was written by the man, the myth and the legend, Langston Hughes, in 1949. This essay is about two men who have a conversation one day about a genre of music called be-bop. Langston Hughes is famous for his work and contribution to the Harlem Renaissance, a period in the 20th century when black people and black poetry had become popular in the United States. The purpose of this essay is to inform the audience about the effects racism had on the black community, and how it had become so engrained in the culture, a style of music was named after it. Living as a black man in the forties, it was difficult dealing with police. A character named Simple says it best when he says, “A dark man shall see dark days” (35). Between brutality from the police and segregation from some of the other white people at the time, days were dark for the dark man indeed. This essay was written for people who had heard of be-bop music, but not known the racist origins, so Hughes takes some time out with this piece to break it down. 

The ways that Hughes gets his point across are through the uses of colloquialisms and onomatopoeia. The colloquialisms come from a man named Simple, who is the man one doing most of the talking in this essay. His use of slang words like “Negro” and referring to the people as “folks” (“white folks” or “black folks”) make the conversation more laid back and informal. Some of the onomatopoeia used in this essay like, “bop” and, “‘ooool-ya-koo! Ou-o-o!” demonstrate the sounds that the black people would make and give us an idea of how this was translated into the music style of the day. With all of this put together, I’d say that Hughes efficiently gets his point across. He uses characters like Simple and the various rhetorical devices to the reality of life as a black man, and how this pain was turned into a lively and beautiful genre of music.

Essay Post 1

Robert Frost

The Figure a Poem Makes

This essay is written by none other than the world renowned Robert Frost. He is one of the most well known poets of his time because of his works like The Road Not Taken, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, and Fire and Ice. Frost’s The Figure a Poem Makes is a reflection on poems and his personal take as to what a poem should both be and consist of. Frost argues throughout this piece that poems shouldn't only be beautiful and appreciated as works of art, but that they should also teach the reader something important. Whether it be a small moral or words to live by, Frost believes that poems and all of poetry should be as helpful as it is alluring. I believe that this is more geared towards the poet because Frost is constantly bringing up the responsibilities that poets must respect to call themselves poets. He also delves a little bit into the relationship between a writer and their reader, making the legendary claim, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader” (para. 5). What that line means is that if the writer hasn’t been experiencing life to the fullest, then he wont be able to tell the reader much about life at all. 

Around the time that this poem was released, the world was in a dark place; right in the period of time between the first and second world wars. I believe that Frost only desired to see more people help each other and add their own wisdom to the world. Being a poet of his stature, he definitely has the credibility to make claims such as these. Although this was a bit difficult to read because of the gap in time and style of writing, I do believe that Frost got his point across. At first what Frost says that he wants from poets is vague, but as I continued through the essay, it became clear that what Frost truly wanted was more originality in the field of poetry. He says about poets that they gather their knowledge “cavalierly”, and if theres one thing the world could always use more of, it’s authenticity.