TOW #2

A Jury of Whose Peers? by Bill Keller New York Times

     The top opinion piece on the New York Times website is one that discusses the idea of including non citizens in American juries. In California state legislatures have been passed last month opening jury duty to permanent legal residents and is awaiting a Governor's signature. It is a piece advocating the expansion of the juror pool in the court system in America. It is largely a jury-favored work wherein the author even calls himself a "cheerleader for jury duty". The author, Keller, also refers to the jury system as one of the features of American democracy that still works. A look at Keller's own experience in a jury pool the week before and an examination at the people included in this pool. Then Keller comments on how over the years juries have gradually become more inclusive and why it is necessary for that to continue. Bill Keller is the former executive editor from 2003 until 2011 when he decided to be a full time writer. He writes for the New York Times as a reporter but has worked as Bureau chief in many places worldwide. This two page article uses the freedom that writing an opinion piece allows the writer to have by including personal experiences and anecdotes. Through Keller's balance of factual information and personal experiences as a juror it allows for a 360 view of an American juror. I believe the intended audience is the American public in general. This an be perceived by the fact that almost all minorities are addressed within this article and how much each of their inclusion is vital to the American people. It is almost supposed to serve as a reminder of how important each American resident's voice is. The purpose of this work is to inform the greater American public of the current situation of those included in its justice system. The importance of jury duty is emphasized and why we need to continue to expand the variety of people included. I have found Keller's purpose of making the American people aware of the importance of equal representation in juries to have been acheived. This is supported by Keller's own experience in a jury pool only a week before publishing this piece and by the numerous facts of how the juror diversity has grown over the years.

TOW #1

Smarter Kids are Smart Enough to Avoid Alcohol and Drugs Right? 

by Maia Szalavitz TIME Magazine

Szalavitz suggests in this article that maybe not. In fact, She implies rather the opposite. Focusing on a study conducted in Finland which followed pairs of twins through their lives is where she begins. The study's findings support the argument that the earlier kids develop language and intellectual skills the more likely they are to drink or try drugs than less intelligent peers. Maia Szalavitz is a neuroscience journalist and is described as TIME Magazine as obsessed with addiction, love, evidence-based living, empathy and pretty much everything related to brain and behavior. Szalavitz has been awarded the American Psychological Associations Division 50 Award for Contributions to the Addictions and the Media Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. The context of this piece is protocol to the format in which most magazines write it's works, segmented into short paragraphs. Szalavitz also uses quotes or thought provoking sentences as their own segments to introduce the next separated paragraph. The purpose is of course to show that the risk of substance use is not the two dimensional smart or dumb choice often presented by society. Rather, a risk that is very real for people at all levels of intelligence. The audience is definitely parents and families, being as it is under the family/health section of TIME's website. This also shows that the purpose is a warning to parent's of intelligent children. While the article says that smarter kids are more likely to try drugs or be social drinkers it was not found in the study that any became addicted. It is not a matter of higher intellect equates a higher chance of addiction, instead a higher chance of experimentation. The voice of this text reads as a not mother or concerned citizen but purely of a sociology researching journalist. In my opinion the purpose of warning and informing the greater public of the fact that a higher intellect leads to a higher chance of experimentation is achieved. This is my opinion due to the amount of evidence presented such as the twin study and numerous statistics supporting this. 

A Personal Essay By A Personal Essay

Carolina Tylawsky
Reading Assignment #2
Yost
9/2/13

A Personal Essay by a Personal Essay by Christy Vannoy

Summary: A personal essay is in a room full of other personal essays competing for a place in the Marie Claire magazine. The essay from who's perspective is told seems to have an arsenal of misfortunes which she is comfortable exploiting in order to have her story appear in print. Each essay in the room has one goal: exploit their personal tragedies for their gain. There are two divorce essays, two gay male essays, both of which the narrating essay dismiss as boring. One essay has a series of miscarriages and narcoleptic seizures that she suffered while in a work camp in communist China. The magnitude of this essay scares the main essay at first, then she comes to accept that if China essay wins, there's always next month. Finally a new unpublished essay presents itself and while full of potential, he does not fully emit the pain from his story. The narrating essay is not impressed but everyone else in the room seems to be. She thinks about that essay a lot over the next few days and comes to the conclusion that we are not tragedies, but rather personal essays. "You must rise above and you must do it in the last paragraph with basic grammar and easily recognized words." (212)

Credibility: Vannoy is a frequent writer for the online paper McSweeney.

Context: A very short essay written in a very unique format where the entire essay is a metaphor.

Purpose: Do not be content with being a victim, you are more than what has happened to you and it is up to you to make that sentiment true. 

Audience: Aimed at all people, applicable to anyone who has ever suffered tragedy

Rhetorical Devices: The bulk of the essay is one large analogy where the essays are people who let their lives be defined by their personal tragedies and the competition to be printed is the attention and sympathy they seek.

Opinion: This essay has achieved its purpose by the use of very clever analogies.

Tropic of Cancer

Carolina Tylawsky
Reading Assignment #2
Yost
9/2/13

Tropic of Cancer by Christopher Hitchens

Summary: Hitchens is a sixty-one year man in New York to be on The Daily Show with John Stewart and make a few public appearances when he suddenly feels as if he is dying. An emergency crew of medical workers rush and care for him. The night before he again felt very ill but kept his appointments and made two appearances. Hitchens threw up violently before both but managed to carry himself through the night without notice of ill being from those attending. He comments on the fact that this land is strange with an odd language and there appears to be no racism but there is no talk of sex and the food is bad. It is then revealed that Hitchens has cancer in his clavicle, esophagus, lungs, and lymph nodes. His father died of esophagus cancer when he was seventy-nine and thus begins analyzation of his current state. Hitchens discusses his dealing with his cancer by using the 5 stages of mourning as the outline. Hitchens states he has been in denial for quite some time, refuses to deal with the prospect of death. Then showcases chemo-therapy as bargaining, a way to stick around by trading your taste buds, hair, etc. He denies self pity or wallowing for a few paragraphs and how he wishes death would just come to him. The essay concludes with Hitchens stating he "hopes to write next time if he is spared".
Credibility: Wrote for Evening Standard and Daily Express while living in London. After relocating to Washington D.C he wrote a column called "Minority Report" for The Nation. During this period, he also wrote the books Cyprus (1984) and The Elgin Marbles: Should They Be Returned to Greece? (1987). Also the author of many controversial works on things such as religion and politics. A well known atheist, famous and thought provoking writer.

Context: The essay is focused entirely on his cancer and the imminent presence of lingering death.

Purpose: A look at mortality through the eyes of a dying man.

Audience: Hitchens' fans or those familiar of his works.

Rhetorical Devices: The mood of this work is very dark as it is focused on the mortality of a dying man.

Opinion: The mood very successfully accomplishes Hitchens purpose of seeing through the eyes of a dying man. The eerie unsettling mood set is one set by death itself.

Christopher Hitchens Courtesy of http://www.biography.com/people/christopher-hitchens--20845987

Buddy Ebsen

Carolina Tylawsky
Reading Assignment #2
Yost
9/2/13

Buddy Ebsen by Hilton Als from The Believer

Summary: A story of self discovery which is credited for the first three pages to "the queers". Stating that "It was the queers who made me" at the beginning of each paragraph and then describing life events that helped Als realize who he is. Who took him to Paris and Los Angeles and shared a bed with him. Who helped him surpass the stereotypes and prejudgements that lay before him in the setting of the 70s and 80s. Who helped him feel less alone and understood what it was like to be different from everyone else. See that is okay and that it does not matter what others say or think of you as long as you have a strong sense of self. He contributes all this to "the queers" up until the very last page where he says "Its my queerness that made me". 

Credibility: An African American born 1960, writer and theater critic for The New Yorker Magazine, former writer for The Village Voice and Vibe magazine. 

Context: The essay is broken into long paragraphs that all begin with "Its the queers who made me" followed by small occurrences in Als' life that led to a deeper understanding of who he is as a person.

Purpose: To inform the reader of who Hilton Als is as a person. His life experiences and relationships and how vital it is to find yourself. The importance of self identification and what you let define yourself.

Audience: Outcasts, people outside of the social norms or simply those who wondered what it was like to be black or gay during a less tolerant time period.

Rhetorical Devices: The most important rhetorical device used in this story pertaining to Als' self discovery is epiphany. While out dancing with his sister and homosexual friends a friend asks him what he is thinking about and he replies "I'm just remembering why I'm gay". Following this section he reviews all the opinions and prejudices set before him others wanted and expected him to become. Then comes his section where he begins "Its my queerness that made me" where he defines himself.

Opinion: The style and rhetorical devices used most definitely accomplish Als' purpose of the importance of self identity. By formatting the essay in a style that reads almost like a poem it keeps the reader interested. Not to mention the subtle little events and descriptions of things he says made him that eventually lead to his ultimate self discovery and identification.

Hilton Als Courtesy of http://community.blogs.wesleyan.edu/files/2010/01/HiltonAls.jpg

Chapels

Carolina Tylawsky
Reading Assignment #2
Yost
9/2/13

Chapels from Portland Magazine by Pico Iyer

Summary: A journalist recounts the importance of chapels in his life. Rather than focus on chapels because they are the house of God, Iyer focuses on their immense silence. The essay describes the sanctity of silence and how we all need our own "chapels" or silent spaces from which to escape the modern world. He discusses the advancement of even the most serene places, including the Benedictine Monastery he has stayed in over 50 times with its addition of internet. Iyer reflects on the role of silence in world cultures, comparing the Japanese lifestyle to the American and British. Currently residing in Kyoto, Japan Iyer claims the culture to be surrounded around listening and speaking no offense when one does speak. He goes on to tell of how much fuller and happier he feels living his life this way than how he had before in America and England. Formerly a journalist for the TIMES magazine, Iyer moved to Japan after his home had burnt down. He now lives in a small home with two bedrooms with his two children and wife without a car, bike, TV, computer, internet, and has never owned a cell phone. He has spent over 20 years in a Monastery and goes to sleep on his couch in his living room every night at 8:30 and says it is the most luxurious, expansive thing in the world.

Credibility: Iyer was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford, and went on to pursue a  career as a reporter, essayist, and novelist. Iyer has filed stories from all over the world, including Bhutan, Nepal, Ethiopia, Cuba, Argentina, and North Korea. Iyer considers himself a citizen of the world. Iyer works as a freelance journalist, and has contributed to publications such as Time Magazine, Harper's Magazine, and The New York Review of Books. In a Time article in the leadup to the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Iyer's exhaustive study of South Korea helped lift the veil on the quiet transformation of what many people remembered as an impoverished third-world country into the world's eleventh largest economy. Currently he lives and works much of the year in Japan. 

Context: The style of the essay is very zen itself and flows beautifully. There are references to poetry by Emerson to the everyday occurrences of life and identifying with the reader. While reading it almost seemed like Iyer was speaking directly to me.

Purpose: I believe the purpose of this essay to be to spread the awareness of the importance of seperating ourselves from the digital world and enveloping ourselves in the real world around us. Iyer does a very good job of not preaching or stating that technology is bad and should be cut out of our lives completely. Rather, he instead shares his experiences with and without technology and how both situations effected him.

Audience: The message of this essay is so universal it can be shared with nearly anyone and impact them. It has the power to influence middle aged men and women who work 9-5 5 days a week as strongly as it does to a teenager living in the social media world. The audience most important is the people who's lives revolve around technology or have fallen out of touch with the peace of simply being.

Rhetorical Devices: Anecdotes are used throughout the essay to further the reader's understanding of the effects and influence of technology and silence. Iyer's personal life journey allows the reader to see the effect of silence from all angles because before submitting to a quieter more peaceful living, he lived in the world the reader lives in. The fast paced, media frenzied, technology enveloped world.

Opinion: The style of using personal anecdotes to allow readers to see all sides of the effect of silence was absolutely profound in this essay and allowed Iyer to accomplish his purpose. 

Picture of Pico Iyer Courtesy of droppingknowledge.com 

Source:

http://www.droppingknowledge.org/bin/user/profilhttp://www.droppingknowledge.org/bin/user/profile/6063.pagee/6063.page

What Broke My Father's Heart

Carolina Tylawsky

Summer Reading Assignment #2

Yost

What Broke My Father's Heart by Katy Butler

Summary: This essay is a brutal look at the consequences of the advances of modern medicine.  The bitter side of medical intervention and its effects on Butler's parents. Her father's life is extended far past it's quality of life and strains his wife so intensely she writes in her journal "Enough of all this overkill! Its killing me! Talk about quality of life-what about mine?". The author supports her argument that modern medicine has disrupted with natural selection, longevity, and quality of life by using multiple facts from countless credible sources. Eventually, health problems rob her parents from life and although her mother outlives her father, she too suffers heart conditions at the end of her life. Rather than endure surgeries that would've rendered her dependent on others as her husband's surgeries did, Butler's mother chooses to suffer silently. She survives two heart attacks after refusing open heart surgery and while on bed rest after the second, she tells her nurses she will not eat or drink and to let her die. She dies an hour later.

Credibility: Butler attended Sarah Lawrence College and holds a B.A. and an honorary M.A. from Wesleyan University. As a cityside reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle, she helped cover the right-to-die movement, and health care economics. Butler also wrote the book Knocking on Heaven's Door an in depth look at her parents' deaths and the devestation of modern medicine takes on humane death.

 Context: The story is written like a memoir sprinkled with opinion and facts.

Purpose: To bring light to the negative effects that extending lives through medical advancement diminishes quality of life and does not allow for a humane or timely death.

Audience: The audience of this essay seemed to me to be young adult and above. There were a lot of facts and statistics that would have read as disinteresting and too informational for a child. 

Rhetorical Devices: Nostalgia is used to describe what life was like before her father required so much care taking. It is used to depict the relationship shared by her parents and the way each of them were before the prolonging of Butler's father's life.

Opinion: I choose to read this essay because i generally enjoy sad memoirs and tragedies. However, I found this essay much more informative than I had expected. I had some background knowledge of the con argument to sustaining life in elderly people beyond natural timed death. This was very enlightening, I learned much more than I had known before and also enjoyed Butler's style of writing. 

Katy Butler Courtesy of BookPassages.com http://www.bookpassage.com/files/bookpassage/butlerKaty.jpg?1373413579