It's Payback Time!

The United States is a young country. Compared to the rest of the world, especially Europe, the US is infantile. So it’s not surprising that we are still working out the kinks in our government and society. This is exactly why Cose suggests that we have reparations for slavery.

The Constitution was written with the idea that it would be improved, in the hopes of refining this nation’s government. Much like Open-Source software (yes, I know I’m a geek), our government was to be continuously updating and re-evaluating itself. This process happens when a group of people get together, figure out if something is wrong, what is wrong with it, then how to fix it. Then the adjustments are made, and everyone is hunky-dory.

Here’s why Cose wants Reparations: Because it admits that we have faults, and tries to correct for them in a constructive way. The reason that people are against it is because it reveals a deep fissure in the “Perfect America” people kid themselves into believing we live in. America is not perfect. The reason that I (occasionally) am proud OK living here is that the system is built for those kinds of imperfections. That’s why the Supreme Court exists. It’s the idiots that are afraid of change and the difficulties that come with it that oppose the reparations.

Case Closed.

The Society Computing Machine

Cora Tucker and Willy Loman couldn’t be more different. They both are “heroes” in some respect, they both strive for “success,” but they’re different types of heroes and they work for different types of success.

In the way that many say middle schoolers are “plugged in” to the internet, Willy is “plugged in” to society, at least society as it used to be. He created himself to fit nicely into the little niche that society led him to believe he belonged in. He was the perfect sales man. He was “well-liked,” as he said, he was a smooth talker, and, at least in his mind, he was rather good as a salesman. I kind of visualize him as a number, specially picked, that is to be fed into a giant computer, and hopefully a wad of cash will pop out the other end. You see, for Willy Loman, success is having what society told him to have. Success is having moolah, having a nice house, a nice set of clothes, and, most of all, being well liked.

Now let’s look at Cora Tucker.

Cora Tucker is the exact opposite. Cora’s goal isn’t to be a number that gets plugged into the giant machine of society. She is trying to take that machine apart and re-build it to suite  the needs of the have-nots. For her, success isn’t having, it’s being. Being noticed, being employed, being treated like everyone else. That’s the big difference between Willy and Cora. Willy is lying to the world to find something that is worthless. Cora is challenging the world’s lies to make something worthwhile. It may not be tangible, like the diamond Willy thinks he needs to make his mark on the world, but it is something that will influence each and every person in Halifax County. Success for Cora is making a difference. And by that definition, she’s succeeded beyond anything she could have dreamed of, and she doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon. 

Question of the Day

Why is it that Willy is the only "proactive" person in the family? The wife, Linda, seems to support him, but not really do anything to help him when he starts to slip off the rocker. The kids, while Happy is having some success, never really seem to be able to pull themselves off of their feet. I know that they are imprinted with this notion that your success rides on a smile and a polished pair of shoes, but at the end they seem to realize that this is wrong, and they still don't do anything about it. Why is this?

Filet of Salesman with Béarnaise Sauce and Green Beans

Willy Loman is an idiot. Not in the literal sense, he’s very smart, but he doesn’t understand the world around him. It changes, and he’s living in the past.

But that’s not the assignment. What does Willy think of individual opportunity? Well, he believes in “the american dream”. The literal sense of it. He believes that your life is what you make out of it. He’s free to make his name, his wealth, and his family the way he wants. The problem arises because he has a flawed idea about how to shape his life. His job is a traveling salesman, and the author makes it quite obvious that Loman is a “traditional” salesman. He relies almost completely on first impressions, appearance, and personal image. Thus, he raises his children to reflect that idea, and the conflict arises when he and his kids realize that the way they’ve been thinking and acting doesn’t get them by anymore. 

Arthur, the Author, Miller believes quite the opposite. In the book, Willy and his two sons, Happy and Biff, try to make their way through the world by using their “attractive appearance”, and fail miserably. In the end, it drives Willy to death, and breaks up the family because they’re all living lies. The two kids convince themselves they are worth something, and the dad is, to use the medical term, “off in La-La-Land”. The author is trying to tell us that to succeed, we need to be more than a facade. We need to be substance, have knowledge, make our selves useful, and be proactive in securing our future. 

Speeches Pt. 2

So now I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the speeches that were oh so many days ago...........

OK, done. I think that I’m going to break my thoughts down into three sections to better explain myself, and so I don’t start hudge-dubbing around.

Public Speaking:

I have to say that I was stunned at how scared people are of public speaking. Especially since our class is a very argumentative class, which means that every day we’re having loud discussions where we’re speaking to all members of the class. I don’t quite understand why talking behind a lectern is any different than talking behind a desk. Additionally, I noticed that, while we were all given the freedom of mobility, I noticed that only once person actually wandered around the class (I found the wandering to actually help the presentation, but I’m not sure if it would have worked for other people’s presentation). 

Rhetoric:

People in general did a good job following the logos/pathos/ethos system, and using the Toulmin system in their arguments. Occasionally, I found that some people wouldn’t have enough data/statistics, or too much appeal to logic, in their argument, but for the most part the amount of appeal to logos, ethos, and pathos fit the arguments presented. I noticed that one person, Mr. Dobbs, used “props”, which I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to do, but in his case I think, while it didn’t necessarily help tremendously, it didn’t subtract from his presentation at all.

Content:

Lastly, I was kind of surprised by what people chose to argue for, and how they did it. Erin Bortz had something similar to an epiphany in the middle of her presentation, where you could tell that she was deviating from what was written down on her outline and speaking straight from what she truly believed. JD Hoover argued for another high school. And I’ve never heard of some of the organizations argued for, such as Dress for Success, or the VH1 program.

Speeches, Pt. 1

The first half of the speeches are over. And I have to say, for the most part I’m very impressed. I don’t like going first, which is why I didn’t, but something that I’ve always found interesting is that most people tend to model their presentation on whoever goes first. I was actually very impressed with the content of the speeches. Even the people who “can’t write” had very appealing speeches. I was surprised at how... traumatic the whole experience seemed to be. I really didn’t have that much trouble with my speech. Here was my experience:

I got up, behind the lectern, and organized my outline so I could see it.

I said my speech, almost verbatim from what I’d been rehearsing.

I saw the 3:00 mark, and kept on going.

I ended.

Not really that big a deal, was it? Nonetheless, I didn’t really feel like I did that great of a job. I wish I could have had more time to prepare for the speech, and definitely more time to give it. Like all my writing, and, for that matter, most of the video projects I’ve worked on in the past, I go wayyyy over time. I would have liked to have had at least five minutes, possibly ten, to give my speech, because I found, when researching and writing my speech, it would have taken about three minutes to tell the story of the family, three minutes to explain what HFHGI is, and an additional three minutes to list out all of the statistics about homeless and productivity based on environment. 

SPEECH!!!

Hello, Internet! I come to you not from the cozy comfort of my bedroom this time, but from a plush Panera patio. I'm not going to make this post all fixed width, even though it really is an academic post, because I plan on making this a little more informal than usual.

Speech time has rolled around, and my topic is this: convince the audience to donate their MoleBucks at the charity of my choice. So now I have to choose the charity of my choice.

Thoughts:

• MoveOn.org
• Amnesty International
• Habitat for Humanity

I have a few other ideas, but I think that those are really the best ones.  Now I get to eliminate all but one.

First of all, MoveOn.org doesn't really actively work to make people's lives better. Not directly, at least. So lets strike that one off of the list.

Amnesty International, thanks to a quick Google search, doesn't actually have a local chapter. So it looks like I'm going to be working with Habitat for Humanity.

For those of you who don't know, Habitat for Humanity is an organization that builds cheap, inexpensive housing for those who have a steady source of income, but don't have a house and are not eligible for a housing loan. The family works with local volunteers to build the house, and over the period of the next twenty or thirty years, the family pays off the cost of building the house.

So that's my cause. Now I need to figure out my action.

As I see it, I'm going to have two (II) (2) main challenges. One, I need to really make people feel what it's like to be on the street with no money. Everyone that I'm presenting to will have read Nickel and Dimed by Barbera Ehrenreich, which explores life as a minimum wage hourly worker, so maybe I'll be able to play off of that. Also, many people have told me that I'm fairly good at telling narrative stories, so maybe I'll be able to create some sort of hypothetical situation in which the audience is the homeless family. Actually, you know what would be just awesometastic? I wonder if I could find an actual story of one of the families that moved into a habitat home. That would be great. I doubt that I'll be able to do that. I think I'll also try to stun the audience with an overload of data and statistics. People like numbers.

My second challenge will be trying to overcome some of the more… erm, stubborn members of the audience. There are a few people out there who will simply not want to listen to me. How am I going to be able to overcome that? I'm not sure yet. I think that is going to rely on my appeal to logos and ethos, not so much pathos. Emotions are easily disputable. 

I don't really know where this is going to go. I guess we'll all see.

Literary Vomit

Hello, Internet!

I just want to say that I hate this piece. This is maybe the worst jumble of synonyms I've ever had the displeasure of staring at for the past two hours. I am reminded of another work that I've read. This one. Go ahead. Click on it. Read it. Just the first few paragraphs will do. I'll wait......................................................................................................................

OK. That essay that you just read was randomly generated through a computer algorithm that takes a bunch of dictionaries and smooches them all together in a way that makes grammatical sense. It was diarrhea of the pen. That being said, my analysis follows.

In the piece mentioned so eloquently above, the author makes a rather revolutionary claim. He says that in order to be successful, and beyond that, a good person, is to be headstrong and opinionated. All I have to do to make a fortune is to have my own belief, let no one else tell me otherwise, and base my entire life off of it. He even goes so far as to say that once you come up with your set of beliefs (ie I think that potato pancakes are all that people should ever eat), all of your actions must be consistent with that belief. The author gives the example of charity. He thinks that it is stupid to donate money to the poor because, in this example, the poor have nothing to do with eating potato pancakes.

Furthermore, the author also states that it is OK to change your opinions, sets of beliefs, etc., as long as you truely believe it. Today I could think that we should drill for oil in Alaska, spend 28 billion dollars on making that happen, and then tomorrow totally change my mind and use that money to campaign against oil drilling. And I would be a better person because of it, as long as today I am as convinced of my opinions as I will be tomorrow. What?!?!

I rather disagree with that. The author says that you need to be a dissenter. Thats OK, I guess, but what if the "norm" is really what you think too? I agree that it's good to have a personal set of beliefs, but if they keep you from living your life to the best and fullest it can be, then are they really good beliefs? I am reminded of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Crack-Up" when he becomes a writer, and nothing else. He wouldn't even feed someone who was dying from starvation unless it helped his writing. Phs, I say. 

The end.

Express Lane: 12 Items or Less!

Welcome to America!¹ The land of Opportunity!² Here, you have the freedom to make yourself whatever you want to be.³

Except for a few things.

---

1. By the way, you must be an American citizen and be Anglo-Saxon to be applicable.

2. Oh, and by 'opportunity', we mean the freedom to try as hard as you can, not the freedom to actually succeed.

3. As long as you conform to the structure and hierarchy of our society.

---

Mantsios makes the case that there IS in fact a major, major class separation between the upper-class, the middle-class, and the lower-class. He doesn't expressly say that the rich are responsible for the plight of the poor, nor does he say that the rich exploit the poor. But he implies it.

The wealthiest 20% of Americans hold over four fifths of the moolah in America. This is a fact, you can find it on page 310 RA. If the rich hold all of the money, then, obviously, the poor don't have access to it. Because the rich have so much money, the big businesses cater to the rich. We see this in the comic strip. Because all the big businesses care about is the rich people, the poor are neglected. It's all really about focus. Those who want money, usually the businesses and services (i.e. police, education, grocery, etc), focus on the people who "matter" most, those with the most money. In fact, in the Tenderloin (a poor neighborhood in San Francisco) the police don't actually respond to a 911 call. I once talked to a man who had stories of family members walking across town to get to a phone that police care about just to report a gunshot wound or something of the sort.

So, to  be a little more brief about it, the upper class doesn't necessarily exploit the poor per se, but it is mostly due to the rich that the poor in America are so poor.

The American Nightmare

Greetings, Internet!

First of all, I need to say that I'm sorry for posting this a little late. Second, my right hand is asleep, so forgive me for any typ[s in the post.

Terkel VS Alger. Wow. What a difference. At first glance, both seem to be stories of individuals rising up from the lowly roots of their existence to the pinnacle of American capitalism. But there is a major difference.

In Alger's work, Ragged Dick, the main character, Dick, has a lucky break and gets a nice, fluffy job in an accounting office. He makes a big point of helping others get to their future fluffy job, and is very careful not to step on anyone on his way to the top. He is, in a nutshell, that unbearably perfect person who won't let anyone fail.

But that is where the day/night difference comes from. In Terkel's work, the biography of Stephen Cruz, Cruz works his way to the top as well. He does it through elbow grease rather than pot-luck, but he makes it. He's also the (not quite as perfect) kind of person who wants to help others get to the top. What he finds, though, is that "the man", management, keeps the people he's trying to help (i.e. other Mexicans, African-Americans, Chinese, etc.)from getting to the top. In other words, the system for everyone to succeed simply doesn't exist, so Cruz can't help, say, the bootblack with slow business.

In Ragged Dick, the main character lives in a cartoon world where disconformity (leaping into the river) is rewarded with promotions. In the reality that I hope we all live in, disconformity is rewarded with pink slips. Conformity is rewarded with promotions and advancement. The kinds of people who wind up as CEOs, it turns out, are almost all tall, white, protestant males. And so they want the same kinds of people to serve under them.

When we begin to get so caught up in the PC world of today (thats politically correct, not Personal Computer), we start to loose some of the liberty we think we enjoy in America in return for not offending anyone. I can't publish just anything, if its offensive to some people.

I'm going to stop now. Good bye!