Sound and Fury

Take a Stance on the Topic and Supports it with Specific Evidence

My view on the topic is that I believe that the parents who implanted their child with the cochlear implant made the right choice. Of course my bias is obvious in this situation. I am not deaf and I have never known anyone who is. Until I watched this movie, I had no idea that there was such a thing as "deaf culture" or that deaf people associated with it. Even though I understand that people of the deaf culture would be offended that someone would want to take a child out of their culture, a cochlear implant gives a child the opportunity to choose their lifestyle. Those are the key points: a.) choosing and b.) opportunity. Any parent would agree that they want to give their child every opportunity that they can have to succeed. In our society being deaf would be at your disadvantage. The father of Heather, Peter, said himself that because he was deaf, he didn't have much of a chance at progressing up the corporate ladder. Maybe deaf culture is beautiful and provides joy in the lives of the deaf, but being deaf puts a person at a disadvantage in society as a whole.

Furthermore, giving a child a cochlear implant at a young age gives the child the opportunity to choose their own lifestyle. They will grow up learning how to speak, but the implant does not make your hearing permanently fixed. If the child chooses that he or she wants to be a part of the deaf culture, they could turn their implant off and never use it. Giving the implant is giving the child choices. Leaving the child without an implant doesn't give it any choices at all and leaves it at a disadvantage in our world and could expose it to much strife.

Assange and The Freelancers

Upon contemplating this issue, I can come to no other conclusion than that what Wikileaks is doing is morally sound. As other classmates have said before me, Julian Asange, the leader of the notorious Wikileaks groups, is simply exposing the immoral issues of today and forcing large groups, corporations and governments alike, to deal with the choices they have made. 

I do not question the morality behind Assange's action, and I am not at all supporting the accusations from government and corporations that Assange is a "terrorist" or anything close to the definition. However, during the TED talk, the interviewer warns of a future in which government takes on a personality similar to the Big Brother idea presented in George Orwell's 1984. However, I believe that it could be argued in the opposite direction that Assange and his group of freelancers are becoming a new form of Big Brother.

In Orwell's now classic novel, 1984, Big Brother is half government-propaganda-machine, half sub-conscious-entity that watched the citizens of a dictatorship government's actions, words, and even thoughts to detect any sort of dissidence among the populace and any form of uprise. The purpose behind the Wikileak Big Brother is quite different, but the concept still similar. Governments and corporations now have to be more careful about what they do, who's watching what they do, and how they document their actions. The ever watchful eye of freedom of speech and information freelancers may be upon you, seeking vengeance.

Although for many this does not sound so bad from a moral standpoint, consider another perspective. During the TED talk, the interviewer brings up the point that the video of the air-raid in Baghdad not only harms the image of the US government, but also the soldiers perpetrating the act. The soldiers may argue that they themselves are victims of the American war-machine and senseless violence that they have been exposed to during their service. However, this is an issue for the public to contest now that the video is completely public, clearly showing soldiers more or less chuckling as they kill 18 civilians. 

So, the actions of individuals now are also to be scrutinized by the world. A Big Brother watching over the morality of evil corporations and secretive government organizations doesn't sound half bad, but someone watching over your choices is a different ball game. Some may argue that it's good that there's finally someone exposing the ill deeds of humans on this earth, and I may be inclined to agree, but this new, now small, but growing judgement-maker on earth presents a new moral standpoint for all those inclined to believe that their actions go unnoticed. 

Good Night and Good Luck

I don't believe I'm exaggerating in saying that my neck feels like it's about to fall apart. While reading over my last post, I massaged my temples to try to stave off the tsunami of a headache that is approaching after staring at a computer screen for 3 hours. I am done with analyzing for the night. I am out of deep thoughts. Anyone who reads all of my posts can obviously tell that the quality of my writing has decreased incrementally over the night with each new post. So, however blasphemous it may be, I am going to postpone my last post on Mary Wollstonecraft until tomorrow. Shoot! I was so looking forward to it. Okay, I would be lying as well if I said I have read to the last page of the essay. The headache tsunami is, unfortunately, not a lie either. I will rest, read the last page of my essay, and post my well-thought-out insights on the essay. Believe me, they will blow your mind.

So to those who are reading, I give you a thankful and cordial adieu for the night.

"Too Big To Fail"

The non-fiction book that I decided to read over the summer was Too Big To Fail, written by New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin. The book was a meticulously detailed insiders report of the collapse of Wall Street. The book was very long and covered a huge amount of information, but there was never a point that I felt un-entertained while reading it. It was like a high speed chase. Rather than a bad guy running from the cops; however, it was Executives and Washington elites frantically racing to inject money into their crumbling facades of stability.

The book does not, like many others of its kind, chastise the industry for frivolous spending of ridiculous sums of money. It rather presented an un-biased telling of the story. I really enjoyed that. It laid out the facts for you, sometimes told the conflicting positions on the issue, and let you decide for yourself which decisions made by the companies were good or bad. Obviously many of them were bad because two huge investment-banking firms completely crumbled to the ground and another, Merrill Lynch, completely changed the way it did business and merged with Bank of America. Over a six month period, three of the five major investment banks disappeared from the industry. This is an ordeal worth writing a book over.

The book introduced a dizzying amount of characters. Luckily, there is an index of characters and which company or government institution they worked for in the front of the book. At the end of the book, however, I felt somewhat of a personal connection with CEOs like Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Dick Fuld of Lehman Brothers, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and government men like Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner. The author interviewed many of these peoples wives and families and for many of them told their entire life story. Now you're beginning to realize why this book was almost 600 pages long. Although the book is written from an un-biased point of view, this personification and humanization of the characters really made them seem like alright guys rather than the men who have been blamed for "crashing the world." Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers, the company that was forced into bankruptcy after reigning as the champion of investment banking for nearly six decades, gave a speech to congress which was included towards the end of the book. He described how he will never stop scrutinizing what went on in the last days of his company. He said that he would never live down the events and would never forgive himself for ruining the company that he loved and gave his life to. That's pretty powerful. It put the recession into a new perspective. As a lower-middle class family living far from the world of high finance, we don't see it as such a tragedy that a company thats profits were often in the billions in one year went into bankruptcy. If you put a face on a company like that; however, and see the agony that someone has gone through trying to defend that company, it brings some emotion into view.

This book, however, wasn't just a flouring testimony as to why Wall Street is great and capitalism shall rule the world forever -- far from it. It gave factual descriptions of complex financial products that companies like investment banks and insurance companies were creating. I learned a lot about the world of finance from this book.

My family asked me after I finished the book if I was still interested in entering the often messy world of business and finance. The answer is, without a doubt: yes. This book sparked my interest more than ever. I'm not lying when I say this is my favorite book that I ever read. That statement, to the best of my knowledge, will not earn me any points with the teacher or this assignment. I enjoyed this book a lot. I took it to the beach with me. I took it Europe with me. I even read it once with my friends when I was Devil's Lake. I quite literally couldn't put it down.

So, if you are ever looking for an explanation to the recession explained in an easy to understand way without lots of business mumbo-jumbo in less than 1000 pages, you have yourself a winner right here. I highly suggest Too Big To Fail to any curious intellectual with a thirst for a non-fiction book with drama, comedy, insight, heart-wrenching stories, hard facts and everything in between.

"Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

This article came to me at a time that makes it quite ironic. In the middle of summer, I had lots of work to do: write a mountain of college essays, do all my AP comp work, and constantly check my twitter, facebook, and news sights. Okay, maybe the third things wasn't "essential," but it was a very large portion of my life at the time. It did, however, make the first two things on my list very difficult to accomplish. So, I printed my AP comp essays and wrote down my college essay prompts and headed to the library! I left my phone at home and booked a study room. After crying in the fetal position and twitching for a while in the corner trying to overcome internet withdrawal for a few minutes (I'm only kind of kidding), I began to start and read this article: Is Google Making Us Stupid. Hm, this seems quite interesting. Oh look, it pinpoints exactly the reason why I had to lock myself in the quietest room available in the library just to do work. So, as you can imagine, this article hit home for me quite strongly.

I can totally relate with the author of this article. I find that the cumbersome task of reading long pieces of articles has become quite the arduous process for me. And it makes sense as to why. Today's day and age is all about instant information. One of my favorite outlets of expression literally will not allow you to post more than 140 characters at a time. The article itself on how Google makes us stupid is probably 100 tweets worth or more. I had never thought, however, that it could in fact be the internet that was making me change. It all seemed to make sense though.

I recently watched an interesting video that explained that human beings could be going through a major evolutionary process. There are certain times in a species existence that they evolve much faster than other times. It has been theorized that humans, because of the onset of the internet and computer, are making new neuron connections in the brain to allow for faster comprehension and analyzing. Our brain is beginning to operate more like the machines that we invented: computers. This does have its downsides, however, as the author portrays with descriptions of inabilities to focus.

I do like how the author goes back to times when other hugely revolutionary things were invented. It's amazing to think what the world would be like if the naysayers had succeeded when writing things down was controversial. In a few decades people will think that we were foolish to ever doubt the power of computing. It does, however, present an ominous theory that the human mind can benefit or be hurt by new technologies and ways of thinking. Time can only tell how it will all play out.

"Total Eclipse"

Well, I'll give it to Dillard for writing a very...unique essay. I've read some weird stuff in my life, but nothing quite like this. This was all at once hard to get through and entrancing to read. It was a like a strange piece of experimental jazz. For some of it I imagined the lunatic ramblings of a paranoid drug-junkie. Now let me back off for a bit. This was  fine piece of literature with plenty of deep symbolism and meaning. However I became confused while reading quite often, especially in the beginning, I couldn't differentiate between reality and metaphor. Or was she just using extreme hyperbole? I guess the great literary genius leaves an audience guessing.

She presented many good philosophical topics, but an over-lying theme that intrigued me the most was her comparison of grandeur and simplicity. In her first description of the eclipse she used complex metaphors and similes and, somehow, even related the event to the creation of man and life upon the Euphrates. Wow. However in the diner the hole that the sun left was described as a Life Saver candy. It doesn't get more minimalist and simplistic than that. Another such comparison, one that was much more indirect, was between the six bald men in the hotel lobby and the hillside of people watching the eclipse. The bald men were simple: they watched sports, sat in a hotel lobby, and got drunk. It sounds like a rather sad existence to me; however, it is quite simple. The other group of people was the people on the hillside that she described being joined together in a trance while watching the eclipse. The author herself seemed to experience somewhat of an an "out-of-body-experience" and describes her entrancement and fascination with the complex workings of the eclipse. The bald men in the lobby just watched sports and got drunk while there was an apparently mind-boggling event occurring outside.

It also shows that life has an amazing way of building us up and letting us down again slowly. While reading in the beginning of the story, I felt a lot of tension and suspense building. She created ominous scenes that made me feel as if something horrible was going to occur. The eclipse did the same thing to the author. It built her up with emotion and perspective. When the event occurred, there was an all-out flurry and commotion of dismal activity. Yet when she got to the diner, she heard the joke made by the college kids about how the eclipse looked like a lifesaver. She describes being "dumbstruck on the Euphrates River, I had been dead and gone and grieving, all over the sight of something which, if you could claw your way up to the that level, you would grant looked very much like a Life Saver." Life built her up with all of this emotion, and then comically portrayed it as just some minor event comparable to a small, sugary concoction. Maybe it's all just tricks of the mind, or maybe it is the mystical workings of this strange universe of ours. That is up to the reader of this blog to decide.

"Talk of the Town" A Juxtaposition of Views on a Tragic Event

The first thing that I noticed about Updike's article on 9/11 was the spectacular job that he did describing the incident. I was obviously young when the event took place. At the time I couldn't quite comprehend, or I suppose was protected from knowing, just how much of a tragedy this event was. I had no idea how many people died. I definitely didn't know the impact that it would have on the future and the political climate of the following decade. Updike's description of the event did a great job of creating an image in my mind and pinning something resembling reality on an event that has lived in somewhat of an obscurity in mind. He gave some great imagery and I believe described the impact that the event had very well, especially on those living in New York City.

He went on to portray the conflicting perspectives on the event. He speaks, however briefly, on how war turns the both sides to become furious and violent. He describes how that fury can drive certain people to conduct a deed so evil and yet believe that they are the ones who are becoming martyrs and committing a glorious deed in the name of God.

In the last paragraph he does a good job of encompassing the story of America into just one sentence, that being the last. He describes how he looked out on the skyline of Southern Manhattan as the sun rose and believed it looked glorious. It tells how Americans must persevere as we always have. We must move on from an event with our heads held high and face a new dawn.

This story rang true to me. It definitely floats amongst the emotional side of the issue. It's easy to relate to, and it did a good job of giving me an idea of how the event affected people at the time.

The next article by Sontag was, obviously, quite different from the first. I for one, however, must applaud Sontag for her bravery and realism. Although many people began to take a side similar to hers long after the event, she pioneered an idea that, although could be considered blasphemous by some, obviously required a great deal of deep reasoning skills and individuality. She presented an interesting point that I have agreed with for sometime. America, along with other world powers, created the conflicts in the middle east. We put tyrants into power and forged alliances while we pitted other against each other. We played the middle east like a game of chess. Maybe this backward way of foreign policy should be fixed instead of going to war with a nation and basically destroying it while killing hundreds of thousands.

I think that the founding fathers would be proud to see such a courageous piece of wiring. America was founded on the ideal of questioning the status quot and old ideas. Our constitution makes it easy for things to be changed. Isn't the main idea of democracy to discuss things? The men that founded this country were very much men of The Enlightenment who believed in applying reason to everything. I believe that Sontag has done just that. Rather than blindly following the leaders of the country who say that all will be alright, we must form our own ideas and forge our own paths. So, kudos to you, Ms. Sontag.

So here's the day. September 3rd: the night before school begins. I, having thought that all of my AP Comp work was completed after reading and annotating every essay, reading a non-fiction book, and finding 40 vocab words, spent the day relaxing with family. This sense of relaxation lasted until about 3 o'clock when I got an e-mail telling me that someone had posted on my blog, leaving a comment. It was from a fellow class member. This sparked some interest in a topic I seamed to have forgotten about: oh yes, I did indeed create a blog, and I was probably supposed to post on it all summer long. Yes indeed, I had forgotten one of the most important aspects of the assignment.

Well I suppose there's no use in living in the past and kicking myself for forgetting. There is use, however, in kicking into gear to finish on the last night! So here comes the main event, an all out sprint to the finish. The blogosphere has been raving for days about the "all-out blogging marathon" that is the last day of summer. It's actually kind of exciting. I get to blog about so many different essays the night before my last first day of school! There is absolutely no sarcasm intended there. Alright, maybe a little, but I have no one to blame but myself. So here it goes!

Wish me luck!

After extensively traveling throughout the world and the country, I am finally sitting down to write a blog. Although my posts may be a bit late (or very late), I will try to do my best job making sure the rest of my posts are on time! I suppose to start I could explain where I went this summer because it does relate to who I am in a way. My travels started in the Twin Cities where I went to go visit a family member. I then went to the University of Wisconsin Green Bay for a camp that was hosted by the Wisconsin High School Honor's Project, an honors group for high school musicians. This should tell you a bit about me: I'm a musician! I love singing, playing the saxophone, guitar, and piano most of all! I went directly from that camp to one more music camp before I left for Europe for 16 days! I travelled there with a band and choir performing in some of the most famous and beautiful concert venues in the world. After returning home from nearly a month of travels, I packed for the next vacation: New York City! There my family and I saw all the sights Manhattan has to offer, went to go see where my dad used to live in Brooklyn, and toured two college campuses. This should tell you one more thing about me: I am very serious about preparing for my future.
I am very excited for college and the rest of my life! Because of this, I strive to do the best that I possibly can in school, extracurricular activities, and the sorts!
Along with this class, I will be very busy this summer applying to colleges (choosing colleges to apply to is more like it at the moment). I am sure (at least for the time being) that I want to go to college for economics or business depending on the school that I get into. After participating in an independent research project on the American financial system and the most recent recession, I have found that this is another place that my passions dwell. I would love to work in finances, investment, and banking when I grow up. Furthermore, that is what my non-fiction book is about. It's called Too Big To Fail and it is about the most recent recession and breakdown of the financial system.
I'm very interested in improving my skills in the field of writing and really honing in on a personal style for my writing. I am very excited for this class and can't wait to get started!