12/1-12/10 #2

I would rather watch the movie with the interviews with my friends. I think that it would be interesting to see what people think about me. I think that even though the interviews would be brutally honest i would be interested in what people had to say and what they really thought about me.

12/1-12/8 #1

I definitely wouldn’t want to watch my dreams with my family. I have some weird ass dreams sometimes and it would be way to weird to watch with my family and friends. I think it is an interesting idea and would be fun to see, but would be way too awkward to watch with my friends. There are times when you have a really cool dream and you the next morning you really wish you remember it. That would be a good time for it. I figure that enough people would want to watch their dreams without their family so eventually the inventor let everyone watch without people around.

11/10-11/17 #2

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/17/big.three.auto.bailout/index.html
The article I read was about the Congresses decision to figure out if they want to bail out the nations big three automakers. The reason behind this bailout is to be able to protect American jobs and to help the economy avoid an even bigger recession. Republicans say that about 4 million jobs would be cut if the automakers go out of business. The democrats support the bailout because even though this would deal a huge blow to the economy the automakers will go out of business anyways. So the Congress wants to vote this week before Obama gets into office where he has the power to do whatever he wants. I think the author opposes the bailout because he talks a lot more about the disadvantages than the advantages and makes it sound like it is the automakers fault for what happened. This article is very similar to others on other newspaper websites. All the websites also talk about the potential job losses and what will happen to the economy if the automakers go down. In my personal opinion I think that the bailout won’t work and will just be a waste of money. No matter how much money you give to automakers it will not change their sales because people still need to have money to buy their cars. If people are not buying cars before the bailout then what will happen after? A question I would pose to the writer would be what the current presidents take on this deal is. Also what type of ramifications would this deal have a couple of years down the road. For example how hard is it going to be for the automakers to be able to get back on their feet and be able to sell quality cars again?

11/10-10/17 #1

For my paper I am writing about how climate change has affected the Darfur crisis and how the lack of rain and vegetation in the last 40 years and how the Arabs and Africans need to put aside their differences in order to work on the problems plaguing their towns and villages. If I wanted to incorporate a naysayer argument in my paper I would debate that while desertification has caused the two sides to have to share resources more and therefore cause more violence from people that getting what they want. I would discuss that eventually water is going to run out anyway and that two sides of people that already hate each other are most likely going to run into violence sometime. If someone was to naysay me like that I would point out that while two ethnicities that disagree with each other throughout history are bound to fight every once in awhile I would point out that many of the differences this time around such as the farmers land being shrunk due to less rainfall the last 50 years and also the underground wells drying up so it makes village people travel even farther to get water. Then lastly, I believe that the U.N. needs to become more involved in the humanitarian efforts there and to also have troops there in a peacekeeping capacity so they can make sure the genocide stops and prevents further incidents. What a naysayer would say to that is that civil wars need to be solved within the country to be able to have an everlasting peace accord. Also that when outside countries get involved sometimes it isn’t in the best interest of most of the population and that country is just helping to better themselves.

11/2-11/10

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/10/obama.bush/index.html

The story that I found involved Barack Obama and his wife making their first visit to the white house after Barack had been elected president. I was surprised to learn that this was Obama’s first time ever visiting the Oval Office. Also while the current president Bush was chatting with Barack, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama walked around the grounds and of the residence. Another important topic this article touches upon is that the author talks about how when Obama get into office he is going to use his presidential power to enact laws instead of waiting for Congress to give its approval. I also enjoyed the part of the article where the author mentions that during the entire campaign season it was like Obama was campaigning against Bush because of his constant references to Bush’s downfalls. I enjoyed this part because I just imagined how awkward the meeting between the two of them must be. Although Bush did call Obama after he was elected to congratulate him on his victory and to tell him that he will cooperate with him as much as he can to ease his beginning term in the white house. The author gives a pretty negative outlook towards the future of the economy and the credit crunch. This article is very similar to the same articles posted in other newspapers. They all mentioned about the wives hanging out and talking about policy. They also all mentioned how they talked the war in Iraq and the economy. One question I would ask to this article would be what kind of advice did President Bush give Obama and what exactly they talked about. I think it would be interesting to be able to sit in on their conversation and see how they interacted and got along with each other.

11/2-11/10 #1

For the past couple weeks I have thought deeply upon what I would like to include in my writing portfolio at the end of this year and looking back I have found that while I haven’t written any outstanding papers I also haven’t written any that are terrible either. Upon review of my previous papers I have decided that I will probably include the third paper we wrote in which I described the effects we have on the Grande Ronde Aquifer and argued that we need to reduce its consumption in order to leave water for the next generation. For this paper we had to write in a group of 3-4 people. I found it to be very difficult to be able to incorporate all the group members’ ideas in the paper seeing as when someone had an idea we would write a paragraph or so about it and it was hard to be partial to everyone. An advantage of this paper however is that because we only had one person write it, it is one singular voice which makes the paper flow a lot better.
I will also include this next research paper that I plan to write about the destruction in Darfur and how climate change has had a very large in the violence of this region. This paper is longer than the papers that I have grown accustomed to writing but will hopefully be a better overall work because it is the culmination of all the previous work I have done so far this semester. This paper is interesting me in the way that there has been much discussion on Darfur in these past couple years and after listening to so many outside sources I can finally look through all the information I can find and form my own conclusion as to what is going on over there.
I am currently debating on whether I should include the second paper which I thought we did very well on. But looking at it now there are glaring deficiencies in each persons writing style and I feel like no matter how many changes I make to it, it probably still will not be worthy of including in the portfolio. This second paper was by far the hardest to write and to incorporate each persons section into a decent paper. Each person wrote differently and seemed to cite sources in a different manner as well.
Another paper I have considered including in the portfolio is the first paper in which we had to write about our past writing experiences. This paper probably has the best chance to include the other two. Some changes need to be made to it though, including moving some paragraphs around and possibly lengthening it a little bit. This first paper was a bit of a struggle for me to write because my peer review on it had a lot of comments and really gave me a good idea what I needed to work on and what my strengths were.

10/20-10/27 #1

Gordin, Michael. Five Days In August. 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.

Delano, Marfe. Genius : a photobiography of Albert Einstein. 1. Washington D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2005.

The Day after Trinity. Dir. Jon Else. Perf. Paul Frees, Martin Bresnick. 16m. Pryamid Films, 1981.

Kort, Michael. The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

United States. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Veterans benefits programs for U.S. atmospheric test participants or Hiroshima/Nagasaki occupation forces . Alexandria: GPO, 2002.

Higgens, Raymond. From Hiroshima with love : the Allied military governor's remarkable story of the rebuilding of Japan's business and industry after World War II. Central Point, OR: Hellgate Press, 1997.

Shapiro, Jermoe. Atomic bomb cinema : the apocalyptic imagination on film. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Wainstock, Dennis. The decision to drop the atomic bomb. Westport, Conn: Preager, 1996.

America's atomic bomb tests. Vol. 5, Operation Buster-Jangle. Dir. Atwood Keeny. Videocassette. Jaguar Home Videos, 1998.

Nakano, Jiro. Outcry from the inferno, atomic bomb tanka anthology. Honolulu: Bamboo Ridge Press, 1995.

10/13-10/20

Well the article I located is about how the high price of copper has led to many copper related robberies. If thieves can find copper wiring they will remove it from whatever it is connected to and take it to the nearest recycling depot and get money for it. In the state of Georgia thieves have stolen the copper wires for the flood lights that light up the football field for night practices. So instead of night practices now they have to have twice as many teams on a field so they can practice during the day light. I think that if you close down the places where you could get refunds for your copper then the thefts will stop. There is no point in stealing something that is not going to benefit you, and the thieves do not get money for what they stole then they will just move on to something else. Another way to curb this problem is to bust the people that are addicted to meth, which comprises of 90% of metal thieves. If police can bust more meth houses and therefore lowering the availability of meth then there will be less people doing the drug and less people being able to get hooked on it. I think this authors view is that he is sad for the people this crime effects. Such as the children that can’t play football or the farmers that get their irrigation pipes stolen. One good thing that has happened is that copper theft now carries a fine of the value of the copper plus the replacement cost which has turned the crime into a felony. However if someone really wants drugs then they are going to do whatever they physically can to get them and the penalty of getting caught is most likely not going to stop them. My question would be how to protect copper and make it less accessible to thieves?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/10/20/copper.theft/index.html

10/13-10/20 #1

One of the first things the author touches upon in the article is that all the images and television advertisements influence us on what we should look like. I feel that the people that make the advertisements are making them to look like what someone would want to see. True, we don’t want to look at some obese person wearing Abercrombie & Fitch clothing but society wants beauty and its everyone’s fault it has come to this.
The second point I think she makes is that in these times anyone can have plastic surgery and its almost normal to have it done. I don’t that’s true, I think that with all the media attention it gets it leads people to believe that its popular. But just because it happens on television shows and actors and actresses doesn’t mean that the entire population is going to the doctor’s office and making appointments for surgery.
In the authors next point she described that many teenage girls are feeling the need to excessively diet. If that is true than how is it that the United States has one of the biggest obesity rates in the world? If all the girls in the U.S. were throwing up to keep the fat off wouldn’t there be more of an uproar about what is going on?
The author determines that for someone to be attractive that you have to have big boobs, a flat stomach, and long thin legs. How then do people fall in love? Because pretty sure about 99% of the girls I see aren’t perfect. If someone has to be perfect to be able to look at them or even talk to them then how does society function?

10/6-10/13 #3

The story that I read about was the stock market opening today and going up over 11%. The main reason behind this was that a number of international leaders met over the weekend to discuss the economic crisis affecting us. Also a number of global initiatives were announced to try and bring the stock market back to within normal levels. The only non-encouraging news was that the credit markets didn’t react to the stock market going up. Also GM and Ford stock went up today after a free fall ever since the market started its downfall. After the market worst week ever the beginning of this week will have some people stepping away from the balcony. I think that this is a sign of things to come in the economy. I would hope that this is the first step in the right direction and that the market keeps going up for the rest of the week so that it can restore some confidence in consumers. I think that it was long overdue that the global leaders met together and got something done since our faltering economy has brought down those of other nations. I also think that when the market starts to rise and is done with all its drops that oil prices will once again rise but will not be anywhere near as inflated as before. The author of this article was happy this event occurred because the last couple of weeks have been so depressing. She also doesn’t talk about anything negative happening because of this and the fact that the bailout hasn’t even had its positive affect on the economy yet. One question I would like to explore is what the rebounding economy means to the presidential race. I’m sure one candidate’s policies are more aimed towards fixing the economy and if the economy is rebounding before he comes into office then what use are his policies?

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/13/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm?postversion=2008101315

10/6-10/13 #2

These attacks have been received with the highest alarm. While meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, the President said he would like for church and state to become harmonious in working together to solve this problem. Earlier the pope stated there were obvious signs that pointed towards social tensions. As recently as last week the Italian Parliament went back and forth as to wether they are facing a racism emergency. Roberto Maroni, the interior minister, stated that he thought that the attacks were at random and people should not be overly concerned.



The confrontations have resonated at the highest levels. In a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Quirinal Palace in Rome this month, President Giorgio Napolitano called for church and state to work together “to overcome racism.” He cited a recent speech in which the pope pointed to “worrisome new signs” of deepening social tensions. Last week, Parliament debated whether Italy was facing what newspaper headlines referred to as a “racism emergency.” The interior minister, Roberto Maroni, of the separatist Northern League, said that the attacks were isolated and that the alarm was overstated.

10/6-10/13 #1

The article I found describes how Italy now has a increase in racist driven crimes. The amount of crime has become so troubling that the Italian president and the pope recently met to discuss how to prevent future incidents. A reason this troubling behavior could be happening is that the percentage of immigrants in Italy rose 17% last year. The problem is that the native Italians aren’t used to having so many immigrants and obviously aren’t used to treating them as they should be treated. There is even a bill passing through the Italian Congress calling for greater immigration controls. Obviously Italy is not ready to become a multi-ethnic society.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/world/europe/13italy.html?ref=world

9/26-10/6 #2

Many people do not enjoy doing peer review although they are a necessary evil. Peer reviews are always going to be need and are always helpful in supporting a person’s paper or changing it. Some advantages with peer reviews are with the ability to have someone point out the mistakes you might not notice. The people reviewing you r paper can notice your bad writing tendencies and point them out because after awhile you sometimes don’t notice grammatical errors. When doing these exercises you take care to notice sentence length and how they put their words together. Another good thing about these reviews is that not everyone is on the same playing field in the writing sense and they can be a good learning tool to help people write better writing pieces. A bad thing about peer reviews are that they are time consuming and sometimes you just cant find anything wrong about their papers. In that case people sometimes just bull shit them about things in the paper that aren’t actually wrong and then the person gets it back and fixes things that don not need to be fixed. Another disadvantage to them is that you spend so much time looking over someone else’s paper when you really should be proofreading your own.

9/29-10/6 #1

Well I was looking at the Sports Illustrated website and followed a link to the NBC Sunday Night Football Cookbook. The ad invites me to “Feed My Football Appetite”. The Logos part of the advertisement is that they have a video link with Faith Hill explaining the product and telling us what kind of recipes are in the cookbook. Another outside source would be that it says that there are recipes from several different well known celebrities. Also on the video it shows people actually making some of the meals to show how easy it is.
For ethos there are numerous customer reviews that were informative and gave me another opinion about how good the product is. They also have a couple negative reviews that are helpful in informing me what the product is lacking.
For Pathos they try to get emotion out of me by telling me that the proceeds are going to charity. Then additionally they also have a picture of the cover of the book showing delicious food that I would love to make. The cover is also telling me that it is from Sunday Night Football so that plays on the fact a lot of the people that visit the Sports Illustrated website most likely watch football also.
I feel like the words do take away from the advertisement because the picture only takes up 1/5 of the space. I also think that pictures sell you point better than words would in this case.



http://www.amazon.com/NBC-Sunday-Night-Football-Cookbook/dp/160320797X/ref=sr_11_1/105-3226399-2870867?ie=UTF8&qid=1223335441&sr=11-1

9/15-9/21 #3

the writer talks about the iraqi citizen patrols called "Awakening Councils" and that with them being involved in the different sectarian neighborhoods has greatly reduced the fighting. these patrol members are being paid by the american millitary and are worried that when the americans withdraw in the coming months they will not be paid anymore. there has also been different outbreaks of violence in the past months concerning council heads being squeezed out or losing money or power by other leaders in different neighborhoods. there are worries that these mostly sunni memebers will be either arrested by the shiite government or go back to the insurgency. the author seems to think that without an extremely smooth transition to the iraqi government when the americans leave that there will be alot more violence and problems created with these people holding power in their neighborhoods. the author also ends the story talking about how the council leaders deeply respect the generals in the iraqi army because they are their future. That makes sense because the iraqis dont want civilian militias running around for the next 20 years, they want the awakening council members to be absorbed into the police force or to join the mililtary.
the author deals with the topic different than other sources only going into more depth with some of the problems of the council. in other articles it is discussed about the patrols worries about future jobs and that tens of thousands have been givin training in other areas or have been absorbed by the police.
a question i have after reading this article is that i would like to know how much corruption there is going on in this situation. i would hope that many of these citizen soldiers arent taking our money and turning around and attacking our forces.

9/15-9/21 #2

It is important to properly introduce your argument and/or topic before diving into your argument. You should write your argument as if no one else knows anything about your topic so they can fully understand the fundamentals of your topic. it is also important to sometimes summarize articles that are important to your topic rather than quoting them because you can elaborate on a summary better than a quotation. you also have to keep in the readers mind your earlier argument as you move along in your paper so they dont become lost as to what you are saying. a good summary uses the original writers view as well as your own equally. when you summarize something in your paper you need to make sure it supports your topic well and that it ties back to your point somehow. when quoting its important to properly introduce the quote and make sure it ties back in to the previous article. you need to make sure it frames to make sure it is organized and the reader can follow it. so basically its important to use summaries and quotations to make sure the paper flows well and that the reader gets enough information to be able to make an informed decision about the topic.

9/15-9/21 #1

the writer introduces his quotation as a look back in the past and uses the person being interviewed as a way to invoke memories. the writer describes the circumstances in the paragraph before then using the quotes to describe the moment sufficiently. the writer then describes why the person is there and why he is important to the story. the only changes i would make is introduce the quote better by giving more of a context of the story and definitly setting it up better.




http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/sports/baseball/22yankees.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1222056937-kHIXdlhk4XIXqsjHbgEtsA (first quotation)

9/8-9/15 #3

So the news article i read about was about the stock market falling 400 points on the heels of two more big mortgage companies filing for bankruptcy. Another reason the market fell is because investors are worried about AIG also because its stocks dropped last week by 45%. The article also mentioned that Merryl Lynch also filed for bankruptcy of up to 60 billion dollars.

I think that the stock market still has not hit bottom and as more financial institutions hit bottom the market will fall further. Hopefully by the time a new president takes office some of these problems will have resolved themselves. Also I am hoping that oil prices will keep falling as they fell below $100 a barrel for the first time in five months last Friday. Its to bad that all these mortgage lenders had to make all those shitty loans because it really came back to bite them in the ass ten times worse then they thought it would.

The author writes like he thinks this situation is only going to get worse and that Wall Streets "dark days" are not yet over. The writer fails to point out any facts to make us think that this will be better and just finds different facts to repeat that the economy is crap right now.

This story compared to other articles actually paints a sunnier picture then i would have thought. The only good thing that is coming from this is that oil prices keep falling so hopefully that will equate to lower prices at the pump in the future. Other sources also point out that today was the worst stock market day since shortly after the 9/11 attacks which is not to assuring.

One question I would ask the author is how he thinks we are going to get out of this mess and also if he thinks the finanicial problems are over or if they are just going to get worse.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/stocks_point_sharply_lower_aft.html

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/15/markets/markets_newyork2/index.htm?cnn=yes

9/8-9/15 #2

Formal
Jane Tompkins, the writer, tells of a pattern that shows itself whenever she writes a novel or an article. For the first fortnight she writes and things go well. Then, in the middle of the night, she wakes up to a fright and realizes that there is a criticism she has overlooked. Invariably her first thought is that she has to give up on her hard work. Then, later, she comes to a realization that her text becomes better.

Informal
Jane Tompkins talks about a pattern that repeats itself when she writes a book or an article. For awhile whenever she writes, things go well. After a little bit she will wake up and realize that she overlooked some criticism and that shes gonna have to start all over. After a bit she realizes that she can just revise what she has written and make her work better overall.


Mixture
Writer Jane Tompkins describes a pattern that is repeated whenever she finds herself writing a book or article. For the first critical weeks she writes things go well until she wakes up in the middle of the night and realizes she has made a huge error in her writing. At first she thinks she is going to have to give up on her work but then realizes that she can use this to her advantage and make her work better and more interesting.

9/8-9/15 #1

The first strategy i would adopt for use in my autobiography as a writer would be that it is important to make connections between my experiences and those of my readers and that by doing that it helps my readers understand how my past experiences have shaped me and that different experiences can do different things and that even bad experiences can lead to good things.
It is important to not only state my experiences but to also explain their significance and what kind of effect they had. It is also important that you don't just talk about yourself the entire paper but also include

The second strategy i would adopt to use is that its important to connect my experiences to a larger issue such as my ability to be a good writer and excelling in different classes or different assignments. I think it is important to include personal experiences where ever possible to add some personal flavor to my writings. It is also important to explain significance of your events as long as it has something to do with your paper and not just a random fact about yourself.