Do I use the comm, here, no, not there, here,?

I've always enjoyed commas. They look great and it feels like you can use them anywhere. Unfortunately, I have never quite fully understood exactly how to use it. I have always just stuck them in where I would rather be safe than sorry. I liked this quote about commas from Purdue University Online Writing Lab.
"The comma is a valuable, useful punctuation device because it separates the structural elements of sentences into manageable segments. The rules provided here are those found in traditional handbooks; however, in certain rhetorical contexts and for specific purposes, these rules may be broken."
I think that's a great explanation on how to use commas on a basic level.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_comma.html

When this Guy talks about overweight, has he looked in the mirror?

While I respect Michael Moore's research and use of facts, I find his delivery and use of language sounding very desperate. He has so many good facts and figures that he does not need to be so condescending to the reader. Shock and Awe is how you wage a war, not convince your audience. I agree with him on the terrible state that public school teachers are paid and the huge problems with funding that schools face.
In his account of his time at school, he makes it sound like he was a little Che Guevara or Pancho Villa, fighting the good fight for education and resisting his parents decision to hold him back and trying to fight the nuns on a school newspaper. And while getting elected in high school is a good example of ways you can affect the community, I didn't understand why we went after his principal. I read and reread that section and I couldn't find where he mentioned what the principal did, other than try to moderate the balance between the spirit and letter of the law.
If all school principals that acted the way he described his, then all of them would be fired. When Moore says at the end to get your way by threatening a lawsuit, that's exactly why principals don't let students do some of the things Moore says that students should do. Principals are always walking the line of being attacked by either side. They hate lawsuits, because if they allow Moore and his students whatever they want in the name of free speech and voicing your opinion, they will get sued by those who want more conservative ways. If he does not allow them, then the ACLU will swoop down and attack him. Being a principal is like being a soccer referee. Either way, you lose.
While I thought Moore did bring up some good points, I also thought that the way he addressed his audience was not only informal but quickly made you either like him or dislike him. Not agree or disagree with him, I mostly agree with him, but I don't like him. Some of the things he said quickly left me feeling singled out. (I'm not crying or anything, I don't have soft skin and maybe I'm not part of his target audience). I was one of the kids in high school who ran for student government. I did it because it was fun and I got to help out at my school with different events. Everyone knows student government doesn't manage the school, that's why it's called student government. It's not the School Governing Body or the School Board. Its Student Government.
In the end of his essay, Moore made high school sound more like a Disney movie (Heavyweights or Recess) or Matilda. You know the ones, where everything is bad because of the evil principal and the kids/teens unite and drive them out and everything is happy, clean and everyone loves learning and their new younger principal. It's public school for crying out loud, not the Nazi Occupation. It's one thing to stand up for what you think are important topics and issues, it's another to rock the boat just to make waves.

My Mamma says that alligators...

All though it took a lot of energy to keep on track, I found "Changing American Families" interesting. The parts of the Moynihan report that were focused on the idea of "the matriarch subjugation of black men" and the criticism of it by Staples and others were the most interesting to me. I thought it was weird that Daniel Moynihan said that the resason for so many of the black Americans problems was that they were dominated by women. Obviously this guy wasn't Italian or Irish (or if he was, he wasn't a real one), because that'w how my extended family works. My Grandma sits at the top of the pyramid and any significant family event, she is there. Any family reunion is organized by her and any major plans are run by her first.
Another thing that caught me by surprise was the fact that Moynihan had the gall to say that family disorganization was the cause of racial problems associated with "dilapidated housing, poverty, unemployment, and inferior enducation". You take a group that has been kicked down, barred from society and told their less they are less the rest of the people and you want to blame it on the way they run their families? Some bad thinking is going on there (or lack of thinking).
That it was so influential and redrew the entire lines of civil rights, so it was not only between color, but gender as well, is probably due to the changing times. With such new ideas being discussed on a national level, it seems only natural that a few bad ones sneak in a well among the good.
Because what was really going on in black homes was different from the idea of the "nuclear family", I think that they had a problem with that. That the idea of a community that relied on each other, instead of hiding their problems from the neighbors, was so different, it was easier to redraw the battle lines between white and black, by changing the focus back onto the black families and their differences from the whites at the time.
I personally like some of the ideas presented about other ethnic and color ways of family. The idea of helping your neighbor and having multiple families really appeals to me and also the idea of making "Networks...of both kin and non-kin." I think to say one way of how a family or family system is run is a terrible idea and shows that you don't understand what the others are presenting and what you could share with them also.

Its or It's

This one took me forever to get a hold on, all the way through last semester. I had to be really thinking about what I was writing to remember to get it right. Even now I have to proofread to make sure to check it. Just to make sure I finally have it right, I looked it up.
Its-possessive form- Its mine. Its his/her bicycle.
It's-contraction of the words it is.
What messed me up was that usually you use the apostrophe to show possession. This is one of the exceptions.


http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/its.html

One of the most powerful cartoons ever

I promise I mean no offense to anyone by using this cartoon. If I have offended anyone, that was not my intent and I'll remove it immediately. I am trying to show the power of political cartoons. In some forms/sects of Islam it is not allowed so show the Prophet Mohammed's face, or even draw him, paint, sculpt, etc. Instead they use calligraphy to represent him. Also, the turban with a bomb and burning fuse imply direct ties with terrorist groups that use Islam as a front.
This cartoon sparked riots all over the Muslim world, from Europe to Indonesia. Over 100 people were killed in these riots and Danish embassies were attacked, and several Islamic groups called for the death of the Danish editors of the newspaper that published the cartoons. Political Cartoonists and the public need to realize there is a point where free speech is crossed and direct insults and scorn is a result of the cartoon.

Instead of showing the cartoon, I'll post a link to where if you want to see it, you can.
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/graphics/muhammad_cartoon.jpg

Apathy for the Middle East

I like this cartoon and what the author is trying to get across.This cartoon was published first in The Ottawa Citizen, a Canadian newspaper so I liked how it was focused not just at Americans, but the Western world as a whole. The regularity of war and violence from the Middle East is always on the news, the radio, bottom right hand of the front page on the newspaper, its everywhere. A suicide bomber kills 18 on a bus in Baghdad, Israeli warships kill 26 including 2 babies, or Hamas/Hezbollah rockets kill 4 Kindergartners in Israel. So what? It's become just another headline and I think that is what Cardon is trying to get at; that it's no longer terrible violence or bloodshed or war, its just the news. Even the clock on the sign shows it, we don't know if there will be another war in the Middle East, we plan on it, even predict it.

" v.s. ', which one do I use

I don't say a lot of really good, memorable, or awe-inspiring things. I like to quote people who do though. I always seem to run into the problem of not knowing which one to use between the two formats and for a long time I thought it was personal preference until I got to college and I started getting marked for "incorrectly citing". No one ever told me how to use them, so I looked it up for this post.
The Purdue University Online Writing Lab says that
Use single quotation marks for a quotation enclosed in another quotation. And the example they give is: The agricultural reporter for the newspaper explained, "When I talked to the Allens last week, they said, 'We refuse to use that pesticide.' "
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_quote.html

An Indian Story

I liked how this story showed how even though a family might not be "ideal" in the traditional sense, people still take care of each other. The set up of the boy living with his aunt and still fitting to his family was really interesting to me. I liked the idea that it does not really matter so much who live with as long as they can take care of you and you both learn from each other.
Their summer adventures together also was an important part of their relationship and the feelings of heritage and bonds with the places they visited, especially the replica Stonehenge. When he has problems though with his aunt and he is able to go to his dad was amazing to me. I thought that there would be some sort of conflict between the two, but instead they just were able to enjoy the visit and bonding time.

The 50s used to mean go grab a Coke and take a drive on I-15

In Soto's story "Looking for Work" he focuses on the differences between his family and the family he sees on TV. He sees the relative prosperity of those families and thinks that if his family adopts their practices then they will have the same life. He focuses on being "just like them". Near the end of the essay he talks to his brother about how if they did things like wear shoes to the table, than the "white people" will like them and invite them over. His sister disagrees with him and says that "They'll never like us." To look back and think that is what they thought back then, that there would always be a barrier and one side would always be copying the other.
That really caught me. In elementary through high school (and still today) two of my best friends are Latino, one from Mexico, the other other from Nicaragua. It never occurred to me as we ran around the streets of Provo that the two white boys and the two darker, in one case almost black, boys could ever be a problem. To think that even fifty years ago it would have been socially unacceptable and possibly discouraged by adults in my life blows me away. I pity the kids who grew up in those times. For the white kids who never got to go over to their friends house and be greeted by "Joshito, come in! I just pulled out some tamales for you and Mateo." (sorry, I don't know how to do the accents) or for Latino friends to have real fried chicken with mashed potatoes on Sunday. I'm not going by stereotypes, that is really how it was.
Coontz's essay "What We Really Miss About the 1950's" was really interesting to me, because to me the 1950s has always seemed to be the "Golden Age of America". Other than the Cold War, the Korean War and the racial differences, it seems to be the perfect time. Victorious in World War II, prosperity compared to the 1930s and 40s, general stability and progress. I had never stopped to think about any of the problems that were under the surface.
It brought up valid points that were backed up with numbers. When an article has a lot of facts, figures and outside information backing it up, shows to me that the author has done their research. Showing how so much of the economic prosperity and stability of the 50s was due to the heavy government influence of new programs like the GI Bill and the Minimum Wage laws. What was puzzled me was how the author didn't mention more about the impact of the Cold and Korean Wars. Maybe they didn't effect the family as much I thought, but that still made me wonder if that was true or if that was the author's choice.
I liked both articles, escpecially Soto's. I had to read a short story by him in my last English class, called "Black Hair" and it was interesting to read "Looking for Work" because it acted almost like a prequel. It was also good to read that the 50s were more complex than people eating burgers and drinking Coke in nuclear bomb shelters.

An American...Who Me?

After reading the introduction I kept thinking about my own heritage and how that has affected me. Most of my ancestors come from Ireland, Italy and Mexico and some of them have only been here since the 1950s while others have been here since the 1800s. When the textbook mentioned the myth of the "melting pot" it struck a chord with me. Since so much of me is influenced by the different countries my family has come from I agree with the idea and characteristics presented by the "melting pot".
To me being an American is taking what you've been given from your background and experiences and being willing to share them with others and let others share theirs with you. Its about being part of one of the most diverse societies in history and learning to stand for what you believe while compromising with others over the small stuff. Its about drawing a line in the sand and saying you won't back down, no matter what.
But with the privilege comes responsibility. Since we have so much and have it so good, we need to help out those that don't have the security and materials that we do. With how much we have, kids in Africa, or anywhere, shouldn't have to starve, or worry about the local warlord taking everything you own. In the end, its about taking care of the ones that mean the most to you.

Waiting for Textbook

I bought my textbook from an internet site and it has not come yet, so I'll just prep the blog for when it gets here.