Tow Rewrite

I find it incredibly hard to hear that some feminists today still find that there are not enough women’s rights. Women today have adopted feminism as the norm, and find that they have to constantly be establishing their equality by competing with men or “fighting for their rights.” Women have been fighting for their rights for more than 150 years in America, and equality has been well established and it is easy to say that a woman can find power and success through meritocracy. In previous times, women wouldn't even have the right to work or vote. Their job would be to bear children.

Sure, I mean, I guess some women are victim to sexual harassment in the workplace, but to hear that as the main complaint of many feminists today is a little unnerving. Sure, its a terrible thing, but to even have a place to work for women in the first place is something that many societies even today can’t guarantee, and the horrors of the objectifying women is at a minimum in America.

I want to point the attention of these feminists to the gender-role situation in India. Gardiner Harris, a writer for the NY Times, writes a lot about different conflicts and events in India. His recent article highlighted the social changes between the genders in India, and how it has somehow led to an increase in rape and sexual violence from men towards women. Women are now finding a new sense of social mobility and economic success, and now, women are able to compete with men in the workplace. Women are matching men in education, and are participating as leaders in politics. This newfound success is met with a huge increase of gang rapes and domestic violence.

This article really caught my attention because it wasn’t just a bunch of statistics about how many incidents of sexual violence there was in India. The article was arranged in such a way that you could really sense the situational irony regarding the changing role of women in India. The increasing role of women in the industry, economy, and politics, caused for many men to feel challenged by this change, and fight their success with sexual dominance. Instead of allowing for social progress to occur in India as women fight for more power, men are making sure that women will still be able to fall to the whim of men in anyway possible.

The writer also uses imagery to appeal to pathos, the emotions of the audience. He really builds a picture of the developing society in India, while also contrasting it with the horrors of violent crimes against women. He uses both to emphasize his purpose, which is that there is an inherent hatred of women by men, and that social mobility will not be easy for these women, even though they have new and sudden success. This emphasis on the emotional aspect of the story really takes away from the writer’s persona. There isn’t really much emphasis on the writer’s persona, he makes observations and implications as if they are truth.

All of these devices are extremely effective in delivering the social implications of the article. I found that it was very hard to disagree with the purpose of the article and it left a very profound emotional impact. I really appreciate living in American society, and the rights I am guaranteed despite being a female. If American women today are feeling stunted because of the way American society is, they should really take a look at the situation in India.

Women in America today are being stunted by nothing but their attitudes. Stress, depression, and divorce are at an all time high, and it is due to the blurred gender roles and high expectations women have for how much respect their being female should demand. I think that these women who are unappreciative of their rights in America are expecting special rights as women, and I feel like America has done well to have actually fair roles and expectations from both genders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/world/asia/in-rapes-aftermath-india-debates-violence-against-women.html?_r=0
http://voices.yahoo.com/feminism-sucks-masculinity-out-men-4231471.html

More Guns = More Killings

This week's article is an article called, "More Guns = More Killings", and it is an NYTimes article written about the different opinions on gun control. The context of the article is a widespread interest in finding ways to reduce gun violence, and since the Elementary School shooting of Sandy Hook, it has been a struggle to find out where Americans really stand on the issue of gun control. Many Americans strive for legislative action to create stricter gun policies, but The National Rifle Association suggested that the way to deal with gun violence and deaths caused by it is to give more guns to the "good guys" to act as a way of protecting citizens. The purpose of this article is to show that this idea is completely wrong and would lead to more violence. The author, Elizabeth Rosenthal, is a physical and science reporter for the NYTimes, and though her qualifications for making a stance on this article seem to be a little out of place, she justifies her strong opinion well with the use of the exemplification rhetorical strategy. She used the Latin American country Columbia to show that more guns and guards means that there are more gun related deaths.  She used these countries that are currently unstable in terms of politics and that using guns to stop violence shows that institutions are completely broken down. She also talked about Australia and their new stricter laws on gun control, and how that resulted in no mass shootings since. It was very effective for her to point these countries' gun policies to the intended audience, which is the general public who has a general knowledge of the gun incidents in the recent decades.

The Rhetoric of Gun Violence

Luckily, I stumbled upon a very cool article relevant to this year's curriculum in AP English. The article I found, In Public ‘Conversation’ on Guns, a Rhetorical Shift, discussed the frequency of use of different terms for gun control and related it back to the societal and political implications of the changing usage. Nate Silver, the author, is well known for his aptitude at statistics and applying it to social issues. He predicted the outcomes of the 2008 presidential elections almost entirely correct, and correctly predicted the winner of all 35 senate elections that year. He is a pretty qualified guy to be writing this article. The context of the article is the recent elementary school shooting in the last week, which prompted many people to talk about the issue of gun control. His purpose is to suggest that the connotation of the terms now used for gun control (which has now turned to "gun violence" or "gun rights") implicates a new surge of political charge behind the statements made on the issue. The audience is a mature and unbiased audience who is interested in the rhetorical analysis of the conversation on the issue instead of focusing on what should be done about it. It was interesting to see such an insightful perspective without trying to sway someone one way or the other. The most effective rhetorical strategy was arrangement, because having arranged it chronologically really emphasized the change in the views of gun control over the years and how divided our country has become on the rights on own a gun versus the risk of giving those rights to everyone.

The Old Guitarist

This week's analysis is of "The Old Guitarist", by Pablo Picasso. This piece has intrigued me for ages, so it was one of my first choices for a visual piece to take a close look at. Picasso is a world renown French artist from the 20th century, and is one of the most influential artists of all time. He is best known for his co-invention of collage and work with the style of cubism. "The Old Guitarist" is still one of his most famous pieces, despite not being in his trademark cubist style. It is a blue monochromatic picture of a haggard old man playing the guitar. The context of this piece was that it was painted in Picasso's blue period, a time where Picasso developed a somber and blue monochromatic style that depicted his depression. His close friend had just committed suicide and on top of that he was very poor. Both tragedies are obviously depicted in this piece, as the man is so skeletal he seems to be starving. He is also sad and posed in a way that depicts despair. Picasso's audience is anyone who appreciated 20th century impressionist art. The subject of the painting is the guitar, greatly emphasized by the contrasting brown to the blue tone. This leads the audience to see that the guitar seems to be the only means of the old man clinging to life in his state of depression. This leads me to the believe his purpose is to depict the life of an artist, clinging to a means of self-expression in a time of such tragedy. His color and subject emphasis is very effective because it evokes the same sense of depression Picasso was feeling in the audience, and the subject provides an effective metaphor for hardships Picasso was dealing with.

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas

This week's article is an NY Times article about the new science museum in Texas. The Perot Museum of Nature and Science is an architectural marvel that emphasizes the idea of science leaving you perplexed, in a state of wonder, and entertained. Edward Rothstein is a critic and composer, receiving his BA from Yale University. He is awarded for his music criticism and is known for relating music theory to scientific concepts. He is extremely qualified to evaluate both artistic ideas and concepts like architecture and science itself. His purpose is to highlight the way that the science museum's architecture captures the potential of entertaining science and capture science's intriguing quality in architecture. He uses imagery and exemplification to explain this concept, by describing a building built in miniature worlds and galleries that organize the matter in a way that the audience can understand the flow and relationship between subjects in a gallery. His audience is for anyone who has architectural interest or who is interested in a new way of portraying science to a young or naive audience. His imagery and exemplification was a proper way of conveying his purpose, but it is not effective because he did not really describe the building very well in a way that the audience can picture how unique the architecture is. He focused a lot on the cool subjects and activities visitors can engage themselves in, but  doesn't really show how the building's structure itself emphasizes how intriguing science is. He seems to lose sight of his focus.

Artificial Intelligence

This week's read is from the NY Times, and is an article called, Scientists See Promise in Deep-Learning Programs. It was an interesting article about the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and that they were getting so advanced to the point where software is surpassing the human brain in recognizing patterns and the process of learning. The article is written by John Markoff, a writer for the NY Times. He is best known for his book and articles that captured the life of famous computer hacker Kevin Mitnick. The author is well involved with the software development industry and is well qualified to write about the concept of artificial intelligence, a big field in software engineering and computer science. He writes for a moderately informed audience, an audience that appreciates the feats of technology accomplished by man, but also does not use much jargon or scientific terms. The article is an easy first approach to computer science. The purpose of the article is to suggest that artificial intelligence has an undeniable place in the economy and the future, that artificial intelligence is rapidly increasing and taking its place in an incredibly advanced and efficient society. One effective strategy that the author likes to implement is personification. The software can't actually learn, but it can store information and recall it, but the author uses verbs to describe the actions of the software, like learning, being trained; the software seems to be like a Frankenstein of sorts. It works well because it enhances the idea of artificial intelligence and also emphasizes the significance of such advancements, to show how human-like computers and software has become.

Outliers: A Story of Success

This week's reading was from my independent reading book. It is called Outliers: The Story of Success,  by Malcolm Gladwell. The section I read had explored a strange statistical occurrence that show in the birth date of talented hockey players are prominently in January and February. He also looked at other "outliers", extraordinary success stories, such as computer scientists and a small town in America that never gets heart disease, to examine the origin of success. Malcolm Gladwell is a British Canadian journalist and speaker who constantly deals with issues in social science. His purpose in writing Outliers is clear from the beginning: to criticize the world's definition of success and change the way in which we allow unfair advantages to occur. He believes that the way in which our society works is that we write off people as failures too quickly, and stunts their development and potential for the extraordinary. He writes for those who want to study social sciences, societal behaviors, and social psychology. Malcolm Gladwell effectively achieves his purpose by using logos, and argues that if we want more extraordinary people in the world, we would have to change the fundamental system in which we breed success. This is an effective strategy because it is straight foward and easy to follow. He makes his argument very reader friendly and does not overwhelm with complicated statistics. He makes the narrative true to character and it is a proper tone.