The Great Influenza

The 1918 flu chaos shock the nation and left it frantic to fight off this sickness. Scientists drove themselves mad attempting to find a cure. In this passage, John M. Barry helps us better understand how this could take place using rhetorical strategies. He uses this mechanism to characterize scientific research by pulling from ideas that are really on the tip of our tongues.
The main idea of this excerpt is to not doubt yourself. Barry begins by using parallelism of the word “certainty” and its opposite, “uncertainty”. This is done to show what scientists need to do when beginning such a task. Without doing so, you really don’t get far and it’s ultimately a waste of your time. So since, as he says, “It is not the courage to accept—indeed, embrace—uncertainty” it’s a clever device used to look at this problem.
John uses diction to explain his next step. He uses cheerful words such as “intelligence and curiosity, but passion, patience, creativity, self-sufficiency, and courage”. These words also have a soft touch to them as if he’s speaking on how a father should be towards his child. By using this strategy, according to John, it should make the process of acquiring a cure much quicker. You should now have no hesitation or uncertainty in what you’re doing at this point.
Barry next gives an example of how even the greatest of scientists can make a misstep but if they had just listened in the beginning, they would have seen they were correct. John says, “Einstein refused to accept his own theory until his predictions were tested, one must seek out such findings.” This quote is essentially given to encourage the scientists to trust in themselves in order for them to accomplish their final goal. Even though Einstein is placed on a pedestal as a genius, he is still makes mistakes like we all do. A scientist ultimately has to be confident in all aspects of his work.
Finally, John encourages us to use wisdom and imagination while experimenting. “In the wilderness the scientist must create… everything.” John promotes clever choices.

Pink Flamingo

America puts its value on a variety of things. Such things as our countries flag and its colors, red, white and blue are held in reverence. The eagle, which symbolizes freedom, is shown as America’s symbol. But of all the strange things to become popular for the United States is another bird. In Jennifer Price’s essay, she speaks of how the flamingo became so popular in America. She talks about how this vibrant bird was brought to everyone’s attention in the early 20th century. After reading her essay, it is easy to conclude that Jennifer believes America to be gullible. I will reveal to you how Jennifer exhibits her view of the United States culture.
Price shows that the flamingo represents the one thing that sparks everyone’s attention: money. Jennifer mainly uses diction to show why this flamingo became so popular. She uses adjectives like “boldness”, “synonymous”, and “pizzazz” that are very forthright and make you draw near to what she has to say. Also these words suggest wealth to explain why this bird seemed to attract the eye of every American. Another reason why money was key in this trend is because the country is finally out of their “great depression” and is urging everyone to move forward.
Although money may seem to be everything in this style of things, color helped tremendously. Price proves this fact using parallelism of the word pink. Of course we know that flamingos are pink because they don’t come in any other shade, but Jennifer realized that for this reason is why the public fell in love. The shade of pink was basically used as a persuasive mechanism to lure all of America. Price uses brash adjectives such as “sassy”, “hot”, and “flamboyant” all to describe this one tint. These words are used to entice and to better help her reader understand exactly what attracted to such an object.
A core entity that still affects people and all of today’s fads is what the “stars” had. If it’s somehow attainable, just about any and everyone attempts to get their hands on it. Although this was more so with the color pink, it all derived from the flamingo. Jennifer states the color pink was so popular it was on “washing machines, cars, and kitchen counters”. Even Elvis Presley’s pink Cadillac was decked out in the flamingo’s shade!
A final aspect of the flamingo’s magnetic affect was that the flamingo was held in reverence in many different religions and countries. From Egypt, to Mexico, to the Caribbean, the flamingo represents all sorts of things. It was used as an instrument of art, dance and even literature. Jennifer says, “Early Christians associated it with the red phoenix.” All these things found in this one bird!
In conclusion, Jennifer Price’s view of the United States is that the country is susceptible to obtain interest in objects that can be as unpretentious as a bird. Although this bird may appear vivid in color, symbolic of money, and even adorned by celebrities, the reasons only appear relevant because of how it is displayed. Because this country is so easy to fool, the flamingo will probably be just another fad that will return just as soon as past crazes have.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

In life most of us strive to receive the great things life has to offer by doing what we know to be right. We’ve heard the whole “you reap what you sow” bit and what’s right from wrong. We try our best to accomplish these righteous achievements. By applying these concepts to our lives we not only believe we’ll succeed on earth but also, if we believe there is one, that we’ll spend the rest of eternity heaven. Well, all of those expectations can be slaughtered after reading Jonathan Edwards frightening “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
Through ethos, it is plain to see this character’s uncanny way of speaking to his audience. In the attempt to bring people over to Christ, Edwards uses a streak of condemnation. The theme of his message is ultimately of our demise. While reading, you encounter frightening twists and turns. But Jonathan’s stance is truly dependant on “the wages of sin is death.”
Edwards begins his grueling speech with a Bible verse. In fact, this idea is found throughout his entire oration. The thing I find most peculiar is that as many times he attempts to pull things from scripture, it is never an entire verse or he sums up the verse in his own words. For example, he initiates his speech saying, “In this verse is threatened the vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites…Their foot shall slide in due time…relating to the punishment and destruction.” To start on that note shows he is one to use the element of surprise.
Another thing that was strange is how he depicts God. God is seen in several lights throughout his message. He goes from being a God who helps and then allows you to fall by which you have no way of getting back up. Yet it is only by His gracious hand that we are still standing because He is so merciful. Next He becomes this God of wrath and this cycle seems to never end. Jonathan even quotes a verse saying, “I say unto you, Fear him.” And after saying all this, Edwards expects his audience to actually receive this and want to follow God.
Not only does Edwards tell of our hellish eternity, but paints a vivid picture. He describes it as a furnace, “a wide bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath.” And we’re later described as “a loathsome insect over the fire.” Jonathan even goes on to compare the horrendous fire of hell to the fire of guilt burning in our hearts. “The flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire bent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out.” Yet he believes saying these things would make people want to agree and do as he says.
Finally, the most confusing part of his lecture, Jonathan Edwards insists on contradicting himself through the entire speech. He tells us, “God holds you over the pit of hell…he abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked…you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes.” But he just said before this, “There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment.” The whole “God is happy and then mad again” thing is continuous. He then goes on to talk about God’s infinite love and wrath. The two in no way can be equal.
So after hearing this message, I could only imagine the questions and thoughts running through the heads of his listeners. How Edwards could just walk in and say with such confidence that everyone belongs in hell is inconceivable. By using such unusual, and what seems to me, unbelievable tactics such as condemnation, false quotes, such great changing descriptions of how God views us, and finally the depiction of hell. This is truly a speech that would have received some rebuttals. He pretty much finished his speech by saying, “So just remember, repent or go tell hell. Thank you.” Yes, we can only imagine.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

After seeing the title of the article, it is pure instinct to assume it is strictly about the Google web site. You’d think it would be telling you that somehow, by looking up everything you need, it makes you stupid. But that idea is wrong because the article goes bigger than just Google. In actuality, the article is about technology overall. It tells of how it’s a cycle when new technology is brought about, it decreases our intelligence. When reading this article, it is easy to be persuaded to think as the author, Nicholas Carr, does.
In the article, he presents logical points to prove how Google is in fact making us stupid. Some things he points out are poor reading skills and declining writing skills, which ultimately establishes laziness. Carr looks at what exactly, not only Google, but the computer’s resources may intend for good but in actuality, harms us. By doing this, you can see how simple it is to literally drain our minds.The main idea that Nicholas is trying to get across is that the technology today weakens our mind. He gets this message across by using instances from past technology and its moving forward. For example, Friedrich Nietzsche purchased a typewriter in 1882. He became dependant on it to type because his vision was becoming worse than it already had been. Because our brains are easily transformed, his mind began to rely on the machine rather than his own intelligence. Since this happened in the past, the author is implying that it should be no surprise that it’s happening now and we should actually be more aware of it.It’s intriguing to see Carr not only use modern day people for this analysis, but professors and scholars too. He gives blogs from Scott Karp who talks about not only being a phenomenal reader, but also literature major in college. Now he doesn’t even read books because Scott would rather just go on the internet. Another blog given by teacher, Bruce Friedman, speaks on him no longer being able to hold the substance of what he’s reading. Because they have relied on the internet, their minds no longer feel the need to go that extra mile. Soon the mind remains that way but is hard to go back once it’s gone so far.I think what really struck my attention was that Google uses an artificial intelligence. Previously knowing this, it makes me wonder why we still tend to use the site for pretty much anything. It’s as if we think nothing of a word right in front of us, artificial, means nothing. That in itself should spark our minds and make us realize something “not real” will be temporarily taking the place of our own intelligence. If chief executive, Eric Schmidt, can be smart enough to create so many things on one site used by so many people, we should be able to use just as much in our own lives. In conclusion, Nicholas Carr accomplished just what he intended to in writing this article. I am completely persuaded to believe that the internet, including sites like Google, take our minds nowhere and actually make them stagnant. We end up depending on them even for the simple things. Technology weakens our mind and allows us to establish a lazy mentality. If we would just take a minute to think and not just let technology immobilize ourselvess, we could actually get somewhere rather than be stuck.

The weeping willow tree drooped like a orphaned girl