Sorces_Clinton Wright

http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9509057732&site=ehost-live

http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9508087545&site=ehost-live

http://listverse.com/2009/11/02/10-notorious-cases-of-the-bystander-effect/
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CCX3406000108&v=2.1&u=psucic&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-5424131-504083.html
Most of these were found while in the library.

Mascot_Clinton Wright

A potential research question that the author could have started with would be “What is the history of the Seminole Tribe in Florida?” This question would lead him into the history of the tribe and then possibly lead him into the connection with the university. The purpose of the article he wrote is to explain to the reader why Florida State University built new statues that reflected the Seminole nation. Lapointe’s purpose is to talk about the ruling of the N.C.A.A. and how it affected Florida State University’s relationship with the Seminoles. Lapointe interviews students of the university who have Seminole heritage and how they feel about the new statues; the interviews help to back up the author’s ethos. The interviews are a part of the research he did while writing the article as well as research the ruling of the N.C.A.A. and how the Seminole Indians felt about the ruling. He also researched the history of Florida State University’s mascots and gave a description of an old one and the one that they currently use. Interviews with representatives from the tribes’ historical departments are used well when the author talks about how the Seminoles feel about the university and how the mascot represents the tribe. The author did a lot of background research and all of it helped to back up the point he was trying to make.

Is Google Making Us Stupid_Clinton Wright

 Before the Internet, people were on their own to find information they were searching for. If one wanted to know a particular date in history or the formula for a calculus problem, they would have to spend significant time in a library searching through books. Now, these same actions can be done in a matter of seconds with Google. The human mind is not required to strain itself interpreting the words in a book or critically thinking when trying to find an answer. As mentioned in the article, this is causing our brains to expect answers without working for them. We are getting so used to the “efficient” way of obtaining information that we are losing our ability to really understand a long essay or paragraph. The article makes a valid point stating that reading is not instinctive, but learned. The human mind is taught how to interpret words and in turn, what way it should go about interpreting said words. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, said, “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” If this were true, the human brain would cease to think for itself. It would never need to process anything to come to a conclusion. The Internet does not allow for independent thought. The creativity of the brain is seen as a “bug that needs to be fixed” as stated in the article. Our brains are adapting to the style of the internet, quick and to the point. Eventually, we will get to the point where we no longer think for ourselves but simply choose the fastest, most efficient route to solving problems.

Joy Response_Clinton wright

I would characterize Bill Joy’s primary concern being the idea that machines will take over as the dominant race on Earth. He fears that because this will probably happen gradually, humans will just accept the change and then not be able to do anything about it. While I do not agree with what he is saying, Joy explains many examples that have well-qualified individuals backing up the ideas. He uses meetings with friends and other specialists as evidence to set up the problem. He combines anecdotes and examples at the same time when he does this. He tells the anecdote of when he actually talked to the person about what they thought and then follows up the anecdote with the example of what they wrote. He uses this technique when telling the reader about his trip to Los Angeles to meet and talk to his friend Danny Hillis. He also leads into the article with the anecdote and explanation of Ray Kurzweil and his book. A time when Joy just uses an anecdote is when he tells the story about his childhood and the first time he saw Star Trek. The most effective technique is when he combines both the explanation and the anecdote; this is most effective because it provides the reader with a proper background of who provides the insight.

The issues discussed in “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” are less relevant now because robots are not progressing as fast as thought eleven years ago. Even though technology has greatly increased, it has grown in a different way than what the professionals from the article believed it would. Nanotechnology has grown but not in a way that will quickly lead to robots, especially ones that have consciousness. Technologies invented by Apple and other computer companies are impressive and much more different than in 2000, but are still not able to take over humans as a dominant race. The closest robot or computer being able to challenge humans is Watson, the supercomputer that was designed by IBM. While Watson is incredible, the computer is huge and takes up nearly a room just so that it can function. Machines will have to become much smaller and maintain efficiencies like Watsons’ if they are to challenge human beings. Because computers have not grown as exponentially better as thought they would in 2000, my take is that the problem is now less relevant than as it was eleven years ago.

News_Clinton Wright

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/20/coast-guard-investigating-reports-oil-spill-gulf/

The problem is that there might be a large oil spill in the Gulf Coast that was just discovered a few days ago and is suspected to be leftover from last years BP spill. This is important because it would mean that oil has been drifting around for nearly a year and no one knew about it. If it is oil, it would also mean that someone made a big mistake last year and BP did not do a complete search of the surrounding areas after the spill.

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation/washington/20110319_ap_obamaseekstoresetrelationshipwithbrazil.html

The problem faced here is that the United States has been frustrated with the former Brazilian President regarding his lack of cooperation in Iran. The fact that there is a new president is important because we can now work to regain the lost relationship with Brazil. Another reason that it is important that the United States stays on good terms with Brazil is that there has been recent discoveries of oil reserves that will be available for export off the coast of Brazil.

News_Clinton Wright

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/18/arkansas-fracking-earthquakes_n_837485.html

Fracking is a technique used in trying to find natural gas wells. The problem is that dangerous chemicals are used that can be harmful to water sources when dumped into the ground. There is some evidence that fracking is causeing minor earthquakes and should be stopped immediatly if the is solid evidence because of the dangers to the wells surroundings.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/18/wisconsin.budget.restraining.order/index.html

The problem is that the Wisconsin law takes collective bargaining rights away from state employees. The exigence would be that the workers lose rights that were previously given to them and do not want to lose their rights completely.

National news_Clinton Wright

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/science/19plume.html?_r=1&ref=us

The article talks about how the radiation from the Japan crisis has reached the U.S, but in very small amounts. The problem is that the radiation can be extremely dangerous to a large amounts of people and needs to be controlled and stopped.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/business/economy/09gasoline.html?scp=1&sq=rising%20gas%20prices&st=cse

The article about rising gas prices talks about how consumers worry the rising prices will end the recovery in the economy. While this will not happen unless they rise dramatically, the problem is that it will most likely not drop much lower. The only way to avoid prices at the pump is to find alternate fuels/energy.

Modest Proposal_Clinton Wright

Some of the issues that Swift discusses are that there are too many poor people in his country and that most of these are women with many children that they are responsible for. He says that sometimes one mother is stuck trying to take care of up to six children and she can barely support herself. The result is that the family is out on the streets begging all the passer-byes for money to try and get by in the hard times. The satirical mode that Swift uses supports the message he is trying to get across because it is a different style of writing than would be usually used for the same information. Most writers would use a serious tone, facts, and quotes from specialists to try and get the point across. While Swift does talk about some facts, the satirical mode leads the reader to wonder if these facts are truly factual. Since Swift does use a different method than usual, the reader is drawn in and finds it easier to pay attention to the message. The satire used by Swift causes the reader to want to keep reading to find out what the next comment that he will make about eating babies. I believe his purpose is to make his fellow countrymen aware of the national issue that they face. He wants people to help out the poor and to try and come together to make the country better as a whole. He comes up with a satirical proposal to try and get people to start thinking of new and inventive ways to help out others.

Over the past few months and especially weeks, gas prices are being heavily debated throughout our country. We depend on foreign oil much more than we should and it is causing a great strain on the pockets of citizens. With prices rising to nearly $4 a gallon, there are not many choices left for people to get around. I propose that everyone goes back to riding horses around. If we all just rode horses, then no more dependence on oil and no more need for gas. Businesses can ship their goods through caravans of horse drawn wagons and therefore no longer need trucks to transport cross country to stores. When companies can pay less to ship their goods to stores, they will be able to lower prices for the customer. This decrease will cause a major shift in the economy which will slowly put money back in the pockets of all U.S citizens.

Review Blog_Clinton Wright

One of my favorite songs is “Lose Yourself” by Eminem. I first heard the song as a pump-up song for our basketball warm-up in middle school and have loved the song since. I find the beat and lyrics to be uplifting and help to get your adrenaline pumping; in my opinion, the best pump-up song to listen to. The review I found online for the song focused on the music and did not pay much attention to Eminem. The writer, George Zahora, emphasized that the music alone, is what makes the song so good. He compares the song to “Eye of the Tiger” explaining how well it gets peoples adrenaline pumping. Zahora then says however, that the reason the song is good is because of the beat and music; not because of Eminem’s talents. His closing line says, “You could train a parrot to provide Eminiem’s share of the work.” This is where I disagree with the writer; I find that Eminems’ lyrics are a major part as to why the song is popular among different types of music lovers. Whenever the song comes on in a commercial, or on the radio; people do not just start humming the beat to the song, they start to sing the intro or the chorus because that is the part of the song they know and remember. The music leads them to start singing the lyrics that Eminem uses. Zahora uses a respectable list of criteria that looks at the musical instruments, beat, and lyrics to grade the song. While I do not agree with his review of the lyrical part of the song, I do agree with the criteria that he chose to evaluate the song.

http://www.splendidezine.com/review.html?reviewid=32440298051981777

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO2wA0Te0wM

Definition Proposal_Clinton Wright

I am going to define the word "safe".

Safe: 1) Free from danger and harm.
         2) Was not thrown out, made it to the base in time.
         3) A device used to lock a persons possesions so only they can get to them.

I am defining "safe" in my paper because of the different meanings it has. Safe can be used in sports, as a noun, or as a way to describe someones well-being. I will focus a little on how safe means different things to people in different places in the world. People in the U.S are safe from many things in life that people in the Middle East are not safe from.

My goal is to compare the deffinitions of "safe" and also the different ways it can be applied to people.

My audience is people that take for granted the life we live here in the United Sates and how truly safe we are.

Blog Entry #2: Definitions_Clinton Wright

            Patton Oswalt says that the words nerd and geek were a type of shorthand used by other cliques to describe himself and his friends. In his eyes, he never fit into the stereotype that people defined as a nerd or a geek. He never felt alone because he was friends with people who had the same interest as him. He was able to share his likes and dislikes with people like him and therefor did not feel like an outcast. Oswalt defined geeks and nerds to be people who were into science fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, and Stephen King. Otaku is defined to be people with obsessive and minute interest. He uses these three words to describe the culture he used to live in and how much American media has changed. He tries to inform the reader that if we do not change the way we get our information about pop culture, then there will be no more people with and in depth knowledge on one subject; we will all know a little about everything. I agree that the internet does make it easier for people to become more aware of multiple things and that they are less focused on a few little things. I do not think that geekiness has become normal because geeks were specialized in a few small fields of thought. People now-a-days do not know a lot about a few small things, they know a little about a lot of things.

            Supermarket Pastoral is the literary genre of the grocery store. Supermarket Pastoral is the story behind the organic foods that people buy; it is the trip that the food goes through from farmer to consumer. Pollan talks about the supermarket pastoral because he is trying to explain that organic does not necessarily mean small, individual farms. When people think of organic foods, they picture a small scale farm with a farmer who is still personal. The farmer farms his owns crops and then individually sells to the store. But supermarket pastoral shows that this is no longer true; one company produces 80% of the entire lettuce market. Organic farming is not a lot of small family farms producing crops to sell to the grocery store; organic farming has become an industry. What was once an idea to bring back the power between consumer and farmer to work for a greater good is now gone because the farmer has become a corporation. The culture of organic agriculture has morphed into the same big corporation industry as the regular agriculture industry is; it has changed from an industry interested in quality to one that is just focused on making a profit.

Topic

Specific Instance- Senior year of soccer state tournament situation and game.

Exigence- It matters to me because it was the last time I got to play soccer with all my teammates that I grew up with. They were the people I was closest to and shared a District Title with.

Purpose- To set a mood. I want to set a happy mood of when we won our first District Championship for soccer, but then a sad mood when we lost the next night.

Audience- People with similar accomplishments.

Burke Assignment: The Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle

Burke approaches Mein Kampf by looking at Hitler's ideas is such a way he explains said ideas. He does not necessarily show a bias for or against ideas, but rather presents them so that the reader can take them as they may. Burke's essay was written for the purpose of communicating Hitler's thoughts in Mein Kampf. When Hitler came to power, Germany as a whole was torn apart psychologically. The morale of the German people was at an all-time low after World War I. This exigence called for a leader of Hitler’s status to lift Germany out of such a desperate time. Hitler’s methods of doing this were to find a scapegoat for all the problems surrounding the German economy and convincing the German people to do the same. One appeal the Burke refers to is the concept of inborn dignity. He convinced the people that the Aryan race was “superior by birth” and other races, such as the Jewish race and the black race, were inferior. This would appeal to an audience of Germans who were of the “superior race” and naturally willing to believe that they were the better race. Another appeal is the idea that the Aryan is “constructive” while the Jew is “destructive.” This ties in with Hitler’s theory that in order to fix the economy, they must get to the true cause of the problems: race. This would appeal to an even larger audience. All of the German people naturally wanted the economy to be fixed, and would take whatever solution was offered during such a troubling state.

A piece of propaganda that I do not agree with is the Confederate flag. It supports an idea that no longer exists and a blemish in the United States’ history. This piece still has supporters because it was a representation of pride for those who originally flew the flag. This feeling is still alive in some southern areas. The Confederate flag was created to represent the southern states that broke away from the rest of the United States. It was a way to start a strong mind set of the people in this south and convince them that the South was not going to be “pushed around.” This flag would appeal to anyone who continues to feel the sense of “pride in the South” and especially descendants of people who were part of the original Confederate states.