Something I Wish the High School Designers had Thought About

Color theory. It is a well thought out process that any halfway decent artist thinks about when planning their painting. Planning a piece of art you say? Does that really happen? Yes. Many people think that great art just "happens", that you just get a blank canvas and go for it. Some art is indeed done this way, but most art has a very long, drawn out (pun so intended) process. Most artist have intent in a painting, and the original idea of how they are going to express something is far from how it ends up being. The first idea is always the boring, obvious one. This, in my opinion, separates the good from the bad. Like writing, visual art is edited until the artist wants to maliciously rip the painting into a million little pieces and never look at it again. Perhaps that's why most artists are so cynical. Their work drives them insane. 


Color theory is a very complicated and controversial subject. Color theory is what its name is, just knowing what colors will look good together and what color combinations will ruin a work of art. Some believe that a great color theorist is born, and it isn't something that you can teach. In the interview that was linked from salon.com, two color theory experts were inteviewed about their feelings on the subject. They both agreed that anyone can learn color theory, and I cannot agree more. Thomas Bosket, who teaches color theory at Parson's New School of Desgin said "I have taught unteachable [color theory] courses for 16 years and have never found a student to be unteachable. That is a myth based on teachers who want to feel like exclusive geniuses. "Genius" is not born; it’s in all people but it needs to be tapped. That is done by reaching into the well of creativity, finding our own unexpected reaction or response to a need of society that is yet unmet."  


Being a fan of color theory and artwork in general, I die a little every time I walk into our school. None of the pod colors really work for me, and I often wonder who they paid to make this school look so "retro". Just because it's a 'retro" style does not mean it needs to look bad. I also do not understand why we would go for such a look when the whole idea of a new multi-million dollar school was to bring us into this century. It seems like a terrible, orange tiled step back. Seriously though, mustard colored walls and bright scarlet orange tiles? Clearly the person who thought that up had it out for this little town and wanted to make the town look absurd. Mission accomplished.


This interview had a lot of ethos, because the men being interviewed were experts in their field. They know what they're talking about. It also surprisingly contained some pathos. Colors do express emotion. The teachers do this really cool project where their students have to paint on their hands to match their skin. Bosket said "Color is the most emotional element and to create a refined response we need to tap into our emotions (our psychological makeup) and that is a very dream-like arena, a very personal arena. So, instead of having them match any random color I thought, "why not have them paint a very personal color!" and that was their skin. (This assignment has led to some amazing discussions about expectations and preconceived notions. Another longer discussion!)" So the next time we build a new school, I think that we should get one of these men; as they clearly understand how deep a hue can be. 


The first part of the interview. 
The second part.

When I Learned to scrape By

This article was more like a journal entry than an actual article, but it was effective. It was about a woman who was unemployed and scraping up change from the streets just to eat. Which is really, really sad. America is obviously in a terrible recession, and it isn't anyone in particulars fault, but I am starting to think that someone should attempt to do something about this issue. Just maybe. It makes me worry that this will be me when I graduate college, fresh out of school and in debt. But hopefully eight or more years from now this recession will perhaps be more optimistic looking, or better yet, over with. This recession is probably the biggest issue facing our country right now. I have not personally seen a lot being done, and I just cannot fathom why. 
This article had so much pathos. You cannot help but feeling bad for the narrator and all her friends. "I think about Javier, his cough. He’s worked at the gas station for 15 years. Last month the company decided to cut his hours. Working part-time means he’s no longer eligible for benefits." That is terrible and awful. I cannot even imagine what my family would do if that happened. The worst part about it though is that Javier probably did not do a thing to deserve it. The money just was not there for the station to pay him. I wish that the narrative had given a little more background on how the author ended up in this predicament. It felt kind of empty and abrupt when it ended, because there was not really a conclusion. Hopefully the author gives an update someday. 


The article.

The Super Bowl Ads

We all watched the Super Bowl last night. Some of us cried, others lost large amounts of money, and at least one person in New England was happy with the outcome. But, for those of us that do not enjoy sports all that much, the advertisements that happen during the game are extremely fun, and motivate us to join in on the game time action. The ads were as funny as ever last night, my personal favorite being a Pepsi one that featured a diadem donned Elton John and Flavor-Flav at the very end. But this article, Puppies and Nostalgia will Always Sell, was about much more than just the highly over-priced articles, it was about the need for instant gratification in the American culture these days. "But now, in a hyper-accelerated world where 4G is just waiting for 5G to supplant it, the speed of light is too slow, and even the sense of immediacy somehow feels inadequate; we prefer to experience our events, particularly the enormous ones, well before they happen." I cannot agree with this more. Our culture is based a lot on who can get it done first, with the best cost efficiency  of course. This is true even for things like the Super Bowl ads, where they have teaser trailers on TV and YouTube out weeks before the game happens. The real question here is how our society got this way. Is it a uber need for control in an unstable economic environment that causes us to want to predict the future? Or perhaps we want to know what's going to happen so we can try to "improve" it. In any case, nothing can happen fast enough, and patience is becoming a thing of the past.
This article was more of a rant than anything else. Othmer, the author, imposed humor and quick wit to get across his point: the ads are " are a reflection of a desperate media reality and the degree to which advertisers and their agencies are asked to exceed the massive expectations of an increasingly brand-savvy, post-ironic culture that is almost impossible to surprise." 


The article here.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

This is a fantastic, horrifying tale of a boy stuck in a childhood of poverty and alcoholism. It is by far the most depressing book I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I read most of the book the Friday night after we chose our memoirs because it was almost impossible to put down. McCourt's writing style is fantastic, flowing, and flawless. The biggest quirk of this book is that there are no quotation marks around the dialogue, something I initially thought would bother me throughout the book. However, McCourt's story is so gripping, and his writing so great that it is hard to pay attention to it. It perhaps even enhances the story, allowing it to flow better. This book was so immersing that when I was on the turbulent loving plane ride to and from Minneapolis, I stopped worrying about how I was about to perish because of the terrible pilots that seemed to know nothing about flying. McCourt's story is truly amazing, and it's a wonder he's alive to tell the tale today with the childhood he had. McCourt had a couple of serious illnesses, deaths of siblings from malnutrition, and on top of that, he was starving all the time because his distant alcoholic father drank away their food. Angela, McCourt's mother, was no help in this, with her bouts of depression and melancholy in light of this terrible condition that her family was in. Through all of  this, he tells his story with poise and dark humor. It such a great book I cannot praise it enough. As the cliche goes, it will make you laugh, and make you cry, and put your "horrible" life in perspective of what a broken home is really like.

Bless Me, Ultima: Chapters 17-22

I am not too pleased with the ending of this story. There isn't really any indication of what Tony is going to do with his life, except that he definitely isn't going to be a Priest, a cowboy, or a Mini Ultima. I never thought that Tony would do as his father wanted, he always seemed to deep in meaningful thought for a rowdy life as a cowboy free on the plains. But for a while the priest thing was going well, until he made communion. And honestly no wonder he didn't want to become a priest any more. The kids that made him play priest caused Tony to realize that people would want him to condem others, rather than save them. He's too gentle for that. The priest who was teaching them for their communion also made Catholicism sound rather silly and horrific at the same time. I get he was trying to scare the kids into not sinning with the timeline of how long burning in Hell for all eternity would be, but that was cruel and frightened me. It reminded me of an episode of Criminal Minds where this crazy spanish priest goes around murdering people for their sins because he thought that he was saving them from an eternity of hell. Additionally, I enjoyed how Anaya put the start of Tony's questioning "'What if I go to confession?' 'Then your sin is forgiven, your soul is clean, and you are saved-' 'You mean I can go out and sin...do a million bad things and then when I die I just go to confession and make communion, and I go to heaven?' 'Yes,' I said, 'if you're sorry you sinned-' 'Ohhhhh,' he laughed, 'I'll be sorry!...You know it doesn't seem fair.' No, it didn't seem fair, but it could happen." (Anaya 192) I never really understood that part of Catholicism. Basically they don't want you to sin, but it's completely alright if you do as long as you just are sorry. So if you regret your bad decisions, if you're sorry that you did them, it deems them as okay? I think it indeed is not fair. You are basically giving people the green light to do bad things. I enjoyed Florence, and I was upset when he drowned. He effected Tony greatly, and I think was a big cause of his questioning his faith.

I have to say I am happy this book is over. I wish that there had been an epilogue giving some indication of what Tony does in his later life, but perhaps Anaya couldn't think of anything that sat right with him enough to give to his readers. I like the explanation of Ultima, and I think her death was a good way to end the book. It made the world of Tony's seem at peace, as if he was ready to start a new part of his life. But I guess we will never know for sure.

Bless Me, Ultima: Chapters 13-16

This book and I are in an abusive relationship. One minute it's really great, and I want to read and never stop. The next minute I want to fall asleep because I'm in tears with boredom as it drags on infinitely, and I won't even mention that issue of some random language Anaya created and spontaneously threw in the text. Regardless, this set of chapters had my favourite passage of the whole book so far, and it will most likely remain this way. I loved the little play that Tony and his misfit, rowdy friends put on for the rest of the school. It was such a sassy mess, and I laughed at the poor teacher for how much of a joke her life is. It was like a nice little bonus from Anaya, as if he was saying, "Hey I can be fun and light-hearted in my writings about a small boy and his mess of a life." Then ten pages later Tony finds his brother in an awkward position and he witnesses death number two. Rudolfo Anaya, you are such a tease. The only humor in this book at all is with Tony's little gang. I love them all, especially Lloyd, who obviously going to grow up and sue everyone like all good Americans do.

But, sadly, the more meaningful parts to this book are also the ones that made me so tired. Tony's little dreams where he talks to God hold most of the books meaning. Personal moral conflict is turning out to be the name of the game in this story. The book started out with Tony's wondering if he was going to follow his mother or father's wishes, now it's becoming slowly more about his religious and moral beliefs. The most signifigant one is on pages 172-176, but one thing that really struck me was this "'You foolish boy, God roared, don't you see that you are caught in your own trap! You would have a God who forgives all, but when it comes to your personal whims you seek punishment for your vengeance..." (Anaya 173) What is Anaya trying to say about Tony here, and about religion in general. Is vengeance a basic human characteristic, if even a young and gentle child can feel it? Tony wants Narciso to be saved, but he wants Tenorio to burn for all eternity, and what does that really say about him. Does that make Tony hypocritical, or is he just basing this off of what the people in questions did wrong from his perspective? After all, both men only did what they thought was the right thing. If Tony wants vengeance on Tenorio for killing Narciso, why is Tenorio so wrong in wanting vengeance on who he thinks is his child's murderer? I feel bad for Tenorio. Dead kid, another one who is probably going to die and he's blinded in one eye. That is rough. I don't really know where this story is going, but all I want at this point is for Anaya to tie up all the loose ends.

Bless Me, Ultima: Chapters 8-12

Well after reading up to the halfway point in this book, I have come to a few simple conclusions. The Spanish is now easier to skip over and pretend it does not exist in life, and Toni will sadly not be a wizard priest but merely a Ultima 2.0. He went to save his uncle AND saw the Golden Carp? Too much coincidence for my taste. The Golden Carp event dimly reminded me of the movies and the books with "The Chosen One" type of character. You know, Harry, Frodo, those tough persistent hero characters who overcome obstacles to fight evil. Rather than a good versus evil fight to the death, this story seems to strongly suggest a tone of doing good, in any way that you can do it best. Ultima, to me anywho, is a witch , but she always wants to help others. Toni can see that, and it is causing him to question his faith which in the past had been so unquestionably embedded in his mind. Regardless, Toni is definitely more of his mother's child than his fathers. He seemed almost frightened for his two brothers that left home, as if something terrible was going to happen to them.

Besides the now non-existent Spanish, I really like the way Anaya writes. It has a nice flow and sound. The story is also enjoyable, even if it is a little predictable on what will happen. My hope is that there will be some sort of twist, along the lines of Ultima turning out to be a witch hunter and his mother is the imprint of evil. Or something fun like that.

Bless Me, Ultima: Chapters 1-7

This book is just making me sad. I feel like it has so much potential to be a really great book for me but there is one thing that is driving me crazy. The Spanish. I take Spanish and (kind of) understand it, so I don't really have to look up any of the words but it is just killing this book for me. I want it to be in one language. That's all I want. Just one. It is a very simple request. The editors of this book are also lazy because the Spanish words aren't italicized, which I'm pretty sure is against the laws of proper formatting. So take that Rudolfo Anaya. Maybe he is just bitter because of his awful name and wants to torture us all with a poorly edited multilingual book. I would like to tell Rudolfo there are plenty of unfortunate names out there, and their owners don't lash out at the rest of society and he is a terrible person for being so cruel.
Now that I've gotten that bit over with, I must admit that I do in fact enjoy this book. So far. I think the element of magic and happy spirituality in the story a nice change of pace. My personal prediction? Tony is going to end up as a wizard priest. I think he will end up as a Luna man, like his mother wants, because he constantly has spoken about how much he loves God and how devoted he is to Him. God is mentioned at least once a chapter. But Tony also is fascinated with Ultima and how she heals people and awestruck by her power. He will want to learn her ways and become a wizard priest to please everyone. Except his father. But it seems that his father already has three rough and wild blooded sons, so I think it's only fair that his mother should get one wizard priest. It would be selfish and evil of the father to hog all the sons. Tony was also a little freaked out when Lupito was shot right in front of him, so I do not know if a wild blooded life of what sounds like murder and cowboy police work would be the line of work that would play into his strong suits. Then again, he's only six. So I guess there is time for change in his dislike of watching men get shot. We shall see. I am excited to see where this book goes.

The Aging Parent

The reason I read this article is because I can sort of relate to it in a sense. My father just had surgery a week before Thanksgiving. Nothing of too much concern, it was planned and went so smoothly that the doctors sent him home a day earlier than expected. Everything was fine, that is, until the operation sight started to bruise and bleed the day after Thanksgiving. So how did I spend my Black Friday? No, not shopping, but at the ER. From 2pm-11pm I was there with my father, waiting, demanding and hoping for some medical attention at the insanely overcrowded hospital. The article I read was about how the Baby Boomer generation is now imposing on their golden aged childrens' lives. Yes, I am not a 60 year old, but I can understand why the children might feel selfish in taking care of their parent. Did I want to spend my Friday night in the hospital? No. But out of concern for my parent I stayed there. And I would do it again next Friday night if that's what had to happen. Just like the Baby Boomer's children are forcing them to make tough choices that are affecting their lives greatly, whether that means taking the parent or parents into your own home, or financially straining oneself to get the parent some outside help.

This article had an interesting point of view, as it was written from a 87 year old woman who faces the same problem that the others of her generation are. Funnily enough, the article remains unbiased, and presents the sides of both the adult children and their parents. There's a lot of pathos in this article, as many people can relate to having concern for their parents at some point in their lives. There was also some logos in the form of statistics. When speaking about the adult child's responsibility to their parents now as compared to a century ago the author stated "Then, life expectancy at birth was just over 48 years; today, it’s close to 80. Then, so few lived to 65 that there is no record of life expectancy at that age. Today, if we make it to 65, we can expect to live another 20 years. And one-third of those over 65 need some help in managing their daily lives; by the time they reach 85 (the fastest-growing segment of our population today), that number jumps to well over one-half." This explains why this issue is becoming unique to modern day society, and as we live longer, it seems our responsibility to others grows as well.

The article: http://www.salon.com/2011/11/26/the_no_win_situation_of_caring_for_mom_and_dad/

One Author's Real Life Horror Story

The title of this article "How my book became part of the “satanic sex stabbing”" caught my attention immediately. I was originally thinking about the type of horrible book would a person have to write to be involved in such an ordeal, but by the end of the article I just felt terribly for the author. His book The Werewolf’s Guide to Life: A Manual for the Newly Bitten looks really funny. The author himself says the book is a "humorous self-help book for werewolves". What happened is that two women lured a man to their apartment in promise of "...a kinky, possibly Satanic, threesome." He was then "...stabbed and slashed..." by the women 300 times. Fun story right? Well for Ritch Duncan, the co-author of The Werewolf's Guide... it gets even better when his book is found at the scene of the crime, and all the media outlets who ran the story mentioned the book. However, they said nothing about it being a humor book, and made it sound like it was a legitimate guide for Werewolves and the book pushed these girls along to do such a strange thing.The article explains this situation and then it turns more or less into a rant about what's wrong with the media of today. He was angered that nobody running the story took the time to actually look at what his book is about, and I can't blame him. The media today is like nothing of the past. They seem to have no respect for a person's privacy, and thrive on running negative stories that speak only of tragedy. It seems to be that you cannot turn on a 5 o'clock news on a regular day of the week and hear anything pleasant. It's always, "In a car accident today..." or "When this convenience store was robbed...." and best of all "Three perished today when.....". It's twisted that our society focuses so much on the negative parts of life. I don't watch the news anymore because of this. I just don't want to hear it.

The author used some logos and pathos in writing this article. He used a nice combination of these rhetoric devices in the last few lines of the article, saying "
Was this the story of two cold-blooded, evil satanists whose ritual of sex, blood and murder was thwarted by police? Or was it a case of two relatively harmless wannabe wiccans who hadn’t mastered the concept of a safe word? Likely, the truth lies somewhere in between. But if we don’t know the answer to that question, it is worth asking: How good was this story? Was it worth the treatment those young women received as story after story about them filled with lies and half-truths spread all over the world? Because that’s what these ghastly novelty articles look like to me — a grievous wounding, by hundreds of little cuts." One can only speculate on these moral things. The man who the women cut up is not pressing charges, and it was allegedly a consensual occurrence from all parties. Were these women actually bad and the press brought this to our attention or did the press make them bad?  

The article: http://www.salon.com/2011/11/27/how_my_book_became_part_of_the_satanic_sex_stabbing/singleton/

Internet Censorship in the US?

The article at hand here talks about a new bill that would allow the government to crack down on the industry of illegal sharing of music and movies. It's called the Stop Online Piracy Act. And to me it sounds dangerous. Basically what the act will do is allow the government to force search engines to block websites it deems as infringing upon copyrighted material. The idea is that this will boost the economy because if all the illegal downloading is put to rest, people will be forced to purchase movies and music if they want to listen to or watch it. But I think that this is a widely open bill that could allow the government to censor the Internet. While I may or may not download illegal music, I don't really think it's right. I mean, when one does such a thing, in a way it's like stealing something. You are taking away someone's well earned money somewhere. But when movie tickets are generally close to $10, and the price of a popular song on iTunes has gone up to $1.29, it is easy to understand why someone might go for the illegal downloading path. It seriously adds up, especially with music. However, just because people are desperate, does not mean that the government should turn into a crazy overpowered machine. The article quoted Eric Schmidt of Google and he said the bill “would require ISPs to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked." When did the US want to turn into China?

The author has a very general target audience, as anyone who is opposed to censorship would read this. The article also gave a lot of background info on the proposed law, as if to inform people who would not know about it. There was also quite the amount of logos in there. A decent amount of statistics was put into the article. The author also made a nice point by saying "In a tweet this week, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote, “Need to find a better solution than #SOPA #DontBreakTheInternet.” Her nemesis, Darrell Issa, Republican from California and chair of the House Oversight Committee, retweeted Pelosi’s note, appending commentary of his own: “If even we can agree..."" Clearly if two very opposite people can agree that this bill is a bad idea, we can assume that it can only lead to bad things.

The Article: http://www.salon.com/2011/11/20/congress_seeks_to_tame_the_internet/singleton/?mobile.html

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The reason I chose this book in the first place was because I had been meaning to read Wilde's only novel ever since I read The Importance of Being Earnest freshman year and loved it. I was not disappointed by the novel in any way. It was masterfully written, the characters were splendid in a devilish sense and the protagonist the most captivating of them all. The protagonist's name is Dorian Gray, and the whole novel centers around a portrait done of Dorian, which ages instead of him. The portrait is what Dorian considers to be a visual expression of his soul, and as the story goes on and he ages the portrait becomes hideous, wrinkled and aged, with the bearings of his many "sins" engraved in the portrait.
The biggest theme in this story and also what made it so enjoyable were the philosophical musings of Wilde through the dialogue of the characters. Wilde used the character Lord Henry Wotton to express his ideas that "All art is quite useless." (Wilde 2) and the thought that beauty is the most important thing beyond anything else. "'Beauty is a form of Genius-is higher, indeed than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight,or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned.'" (Wilde 24) Dorian's life is fuled by this thought, as all he cares about is the finer things in life, and how pleased he is by his youthfulness even when he goes into his late 30s. The relationship between all of the main male characters especially between Dorian and Basil Hallward, the man who painted the portrait, and Dorian and Lord Wotton subtly expresses the sexuality of Wilde. There is no explicit expression of homosexuality in the book, but at the time the book was written, it would have pushed the scandal of this book to a catacalystic point for Wilde.
I can see why this story would have been such a controversial one in the time when  it was written in 1891. The main characters are all kind of terrible people. Dorian commits murder, blackmail, and cares nothing for things beyond physical beauty. Anyone reading this would expect it to be a moral tale, and I won't say what happened in the end for fear of ruining the story, but I don't think he was punished in a proper way enough for the audience reading about his "sins".
I would recommend this book to anyone, as it was a great and fun read. It was a great way for Wilde to express his ideals without laying them out in boring terms. It's a shame he died because of his sexuality when he had so much more to offer the literary world.

The Funniest (and most Absurd) Gift I've Ever Seen

So I was on Salon.com, as usual, and I saw the most ridiculous article title ever
"A $5,200 present for Beyonce's baby". My first thought? Why would a baby need something that's $5,200?? Then I clicked on the link, and saw that the gift was a crystal encrusted bathtub. And I laughed. Then it had a link to the website that sold the tubs, and had some sample pictures of the baby-sized bathtub, and this is the way the company thought it most practical to advertise it with:

 Then I laughed some more. According to the bathtub company's website, not only is this bathtub perfect for "pampering your precious bundle of love from head to tiny toe...", it's also great for "...the pampered pet or filling with ice and chilling your beverages." The possibilities in the various ways to use this miniature bathtub are practically endless here people! Best luck to B and Jay with raising this precious bundle of love while dealing with the repercussions of spoiling her rotten, even when she will not care what her bathtub looks like.

The original article here.
In case you wish to purchase a bathtub/puppy bed/ice chiller.

20...21...22....Where Will it End Duggars?

I am going to go on a little rant about these people called the Duggar family. For those of you who do not know, the Duggars are a semi-famous family, and not famous for anything great, but they are famous because they have 19 kids, and one on the way. The family announced on Good Morning America last week that they are expecting their 20th child. Duggar family, why do feel that having 20 children is a necessary and healthy thing to do? Let me explain why I am so against this, and it's not just because I've been told that I'm "bad with kids". First off, think of all your other kids. Do you think that you honestly have enough time and patience to give each individual the attention and help that they all need while having to worry about 19 other people? No, I don't care how much you love your kids, there simply isn't enough time in the day to spend with each one. Secondly, there's this little thing called the world is over populated enough without you deciding that you need 20 children. The author of the article pointed out that the family is well off enough to provide for their family without any sort of outside help, but that shouldn't mean that you get to make a family as big as the mother's uterus will provide. Thirdly, Mother Duggar is 45. Most doctors agree that a pregnancy at 45 is a high risk to health, and during her last pregnancy, Michelle delivered the baby prematurely and Mother also caught preeclampsia. So what makes them think that because they don't believe in birth control of any sort, that they should put both Michelle and the baby at a high medical risk after the last borderline disaster pregnancy. They need to stop getting so excited all the time, or figure out that one of "God's miracles" might just kill someone.

The article I read was on the side of the Duggars. The author clearly sympathized with them, although she did make one crack at them saying "God, unfortunately, could not be reached for comment" when talking about how Michelle was happy about God giving them another child. So perhaps the author doesn't necessarily agree with them, but does think that people should leave them alone. The author also used pathos at the end of the article, saying "I have a friend expecting a baby she already knows has a heart condition and Down syndrome. She told me the other day, “People keep saying, ‘Maybe the doctors are wrong. Maybe there will be a miracle.’ Why can’t they understand that maybe this baby is the miracle, just as he is?” The Duggars are similarly holding steadfast to their belief that miracles don’t look the same to every set of eyes. And they see baby 20 as just as much of a blessing as No. 1 . The Duggars’ blessings aren’t yours or mine." While I think that it is convenient that the author doesn't mention how old her friend is, or if she has an excessive amount of children, so that's kind of irrelevant, she does make a nice point that these people just really love kids.

Andy Rooney

I grew up with Andy Rooney in my living room on Sunday nights, and I always was excited for his segments as I heard the tick-toc of the “60 Mintues” stopwatch. No, I never really understood as a little kid what he was saying or why it mattered, but I was always perplexed by his eyebrows, and his scratchy voice. Today, as I hear about his death, a pang of jealously runs through me. No, not because he is dead, but he essentially got to complain about everything for a living. I wish I could do that. I think I would be really spectacular at it. His death is a sad one though. Sunday nights won't be the same without the sound of his whining scratchy voice rattling on about airplane travel. But before this, Rooney had a long career of great journalism. For that I resepect him. He, as the article about him mentioned, openly opposed the Iraqi War when nobody else would. He also opposed the War in Vietnam, and held his integrity by leaving CBS when they wouldn't allow him to air it and going to PBS to do so, and then winning an award for it. And here I was thinking he was just a cranky old guy with some seriously awesome eyebrows.

The author of this article was honest and respectful, giving plain information about Rooney's life, although there were a few choice adjectives to describe him, including “cranky”, “angry”, and “blunt”. Rooney himself even called his personality “vindictive”, so I think he knew what he was. 

The Article:

http://entertainment.salon.com/2011/11/05/former_60_minutes_commentator_andy_rooney_dies/singleton/

And You Think You're Paranoid...

The title of this article is what attracted me to it. It really grabbed mine, and I'm sure that it would catch a lot of other people's attention. It's scary to think about the government asserting it's power in such a frivolous manner. I'm not saying that they shouldn't look out for potential Terrorists, but perhaps they should interview the person or do a better investigation of the suspect before they decide to do life altering things such as draining a person's bank account. The author, Jones, could have been evicted from her apartment, and been starving to death in the street from a month without any sort of income.

And the fact that she couldn't even find herself on the list of potential terrorists is also scary. It makes you think that the list could be fake, or exaggerated.

The author was hysterical throughout the whole article, remaining humongous about a very serious situation that happened to her. It brought a different type of perspective to the article. It made me laugh, many, many, many, times. For example: “Oh what? I wondered. OFAC. It rhymes with Oh-Tack, but you’ve got to watch how you pronounce it. Speak carelessly and the name sounds like just what you might say upon learning that you’ve been sucked into the ultimate top-secret bureaucratic sinkhole. It turns out, the bank informs me, that OFAC is a division of the U.S. Treasury Department that “reviews” transactions.” and also “Heidi [her landlord] is a Buddhist. I’m an atheist. Almost everybody on the list seems to be Muslim, including really dangerous-sounding guys like “Ahmed the Egyptian.” But I guess that to a truly committed and well-paid terrorist hunter, we must all look alike.” She has a great style of making things funny to make a point. The audience intended is a broad one, as she backs up everything with information to tell everyone whats going on. She uses short, sarcastic phrases to make the story, which is rather lengthy, move along at a nice pace. I think the main purpose of the article was really to inform the public about her experience with the overly paranoid government.

The Article:

http://www.www.99.salon.com/2011/11/03/when_the_government_decided_i_was_a_terrorist/singleton/

A Continuation of the Week of the Classic Author

Dickens wrote one of my favorite books, Great Expectations, and this is why I read the article. It was interesting to read about his personal life, especially about how his relationships with women may have effected his writings. I agree with the author that his young female heroines seemed to be rather one dimensional, while the older women had some grit to them. I never knew that he was a philanthropist in a sense, he opened a shelter for women in need. It's funny to me that he tried to help the very thing he never understood, mostly people try to forget about what they do not understand.

The author wrote this article for anyone who is interested in Dickens beyond his writings. Anyone who does not enjoy his works probably would have skipped over this one. The author makes no outside references to anything, she solely focuses on Dickens. The author also seems to enjoy him very much, as she opened the article with “(n)o writer better mastered the novel’s delicate calculus of art and entertainment than Charles Dickens.” She constantly praises him throughout the text, even when talking about his faults, she mentions something positive about him right after them. The purpose of the article was to talk about a new book about Dickens, but the author seemed to use it more as an opportunity to talk about her love for Dickens the man.

The Article:

http://entertainment.salon.com/2011/10/30/charles_dickens_the_secret_life_of_a_literary_giant/

Outside Reading

For my Outside Reading, I shall be exploring the literary work of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

To Be or Not to Be...Written by Shakespeare??

Shakespeare was an amazing playwright, who wrote some of the best known and most inspiring plays that we still read and act out today. If he actually wrote them. Or at least, that's the latest conspiracy going on. There's this new movie coming out, called Anonymous, which basically tells the story about who truly wrote all the plays and poetry that William Shakespeare is accredited with. Skeptical? As am I. As is the author of this article, who got an early screening of the movie. I think that it is a silly thing to accuse Shakespeare, a long dead man, of not writing all of the literature with his name stamped on it. Don't we have better things to worry about these days, rather then try to figure out who wrote some really great literature. The point of such old classics is that they are actually here, and survived history.

Not that it isn't important who wrote it, but why go looking for trouble? Wouldn't someone of the Earl of Oxford who in the movie, writes all the plays and such but doesn't put his name on them because they were scandalous at the time, want the royalties and have said something right after his death? Someone would have known and tried to get something out of it for themselves. With a huge scandal like that, there is money to be made for someone.

The author of this movie review clearly did not enjoy the movie itself, let alone the topic. She called it hard to follow, saying that you cannot explain Elizabethan politics properly in a blockbuster movie. Other then that, the author also seemed to disagree with the movie topic, blatantly calling it a “conspiracy”. She even uses a bit of logos in it, saying that there were “50 plus” people who have been favored to write the things Shakespeare has gotten the credit for. The logic there is solid, being that if that many people have been said to have done it, how can we truly have any real idea of the history? As the author put it “The problem with history is that sometimes it just doesn’t play, and as a great man once observed, the play’s the thing.”

The article:

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/26/was_shakespeare_really_shakespeare/singleton/

Occupy Hollywood!

What attracted me to this article you all ask? Oh, well, that is, uh, perhaps the large picture of Johnny Depp right under the title. I love Johnny Depp. I am a Johnny Depp junkie. Pirates? Awesome, except for the fourth one, which was indeed pushing it. What's Eating Gilbert Grape? I bet you have never heard of it, but it's something you should see. Nightmare on Elm Street? Yes, he was in that. I think he was actually Freddy's first victim. And I am anxiously awaiting my chance to go see the Rum Diary. Also, the dude was Jack Kahuna Laguna in Spongebob. I can't hate him after that one, even if he is a overpaid movie actor who is very much apart of the 1%. This article was not about Johnny Depp specifically, but rather how the movie industry also needs reform. I think that makes sense, but honestly we as citizens chose to go spend our money on those type of things. I think that's different then needing to use a bank to hold all your money in or big corporations with a huge wealth distribution problem. Johnny Depp and most Hollywood actors, and sports players are all over payed. But isn't Hollywood all about being over the top and extravagance?

The author aimed this article at everyone reading anything about the real OWS. There is some logos in there, with many statistics stating exactly how much people are over payed in Hollywood. To support this hypothetical boycott, the author implies some serious pathos by saying “If we put the price of a movie ticket toward helping someone in need? You can text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10, right from your phone. What if we gave that ticket price to Donors Choose, to help a school fund a dream project or get needed supplies? What if, instead of spending an hour watching “NCIS,” for which Mark Harmon will earn $13 million this year, we spent that hour working with the local outpost of Habitant for Humanity?” This makes a lot of sense to me, but will that stop me from dragging my sister along to see The Rum Diary this weekend? Sorry, but no way.

The article:

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/21/its_time_to_occupy_hollywood/singleton/