TOW #26: Visual Text (Fire!)

Goal: Less claim, more devices

A man called Hysteria, holding a bucket of water, rushes up a ladder while yelling, "Fire!" to quench the flames of the Statue of Liberty's torch. Herbert Block's "Fire!" was first published in the Washington Post on June 17, 1949. Block, commonly known as Herblock, was an American political cartoonist active from 1929 to 2001. His drawings often commented on foreign and domestic affairs from a liberal perspective, as demonstrated by this criticism of the xenophobia and communist hysteria beginning in post-WWII America. In "Fire," Block relies mainly on cultural memory to argue that America's anti-communist witch hunts were exaggerated to a fundamentally un-American level.

America has always been particular about its patriotism. There are certain phrases that can rile up a crowd--just chanting "USA," for example, is usually effective--but our most significant symbols are usually images like the American flag or the Liberty Bell. By incorporating the Statue of Liberty into is political cartoon, Block is directly attacking the symbol that America holds so dear. However, Block is not the one with the water bucket. It's Hysteria, meant to represent the sociopolitical panic caused by the fear of spreading communism, who is about the put out the eternal fire of liberty. Block juxtaposes this American idealism with reality to show the hypocrisy in defeating liberty for the sake of protecting it.

Although we today objectively know that this cartoon is accurate, Block's audience in the 1940's and 50's either already agreed with him or was too committed to the very conformist culture that Block is protesting to appreciate or be swayed by the cartoon. In fact, people probably began to suspect that Block was a communist in hiding. It was a bad time for political cartoons, but Block's reach into cultural memory made this one seemingly effective.

IRB Post #4: Tuesdays with Morrie

A man sees his former college professor on an episode of Nightline and is reminded of his promise to keep in touch. He flies out to see his ALS-stricken professor and is so touched that they have weekly meetings. This is the premise of Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie, an account of the weekly meetings where they discuss love, life, and death.

Although it is a memoir like I Am Malala, this one promises to be more of an emotional narrative than a collection of facts and events. I look forward to reading a book with a little more heart.

TOW #25: Article (Facebook, Amazon, Our Government and Your Privacy)

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/04/23/facebook-amazon-our-government-and-your-privacy/

Writing Goal: Provide effective, relevant evidence to support my claim


Every day, we give out personal information on the internet--to shopping sites, to social media, to emails. When it comes to invading our privacy, is there really a difference between Facebook and the NSA? John Stossel, an analyst for Fox News and former co-anchor of 20/20, feels strongly about the government's ability to track its citizens and their technology usage. In "Facebook, Amazon, Our Government and Your Privacy," Stossel uses direct comparisons and simple sentence structure to argue that the moral issue is not that the government invades our privacy, but that  it does not have our consent to do so.

Stossel's main argument is based on comparing and contrasting the ways that private websites and the government invade our privacy. He begins by reminding his audience that they nonchalantly agree to be tracked and give out personal information on the internet. Nobody even reads the terms and conditions because we're so accustomed to threats like identity fraud that we don't take drastic steps to prevent it. On the other hand, the government doesn't want to steal your identity; they say they just collect patterns of phone numbers. Looking at both groups, Stossel argues, "By comparison, the National Security Agency's data mining seems relatively benign.[...] But the distinction we care about shouldn't be whether they know my name. The important difference is whether what you do is voluntary." The most important comparison doesn't lie within the actions or their intents, but within . We choose to their give our information out to private sites but not to the government, and that difference is all that matters.

In addition, Stossel often uses short declarative sentences for much of the article. This gives him the effect of stating fact or truth; a reader assesses the validity of each individual sentence more than the group of them. For example, Stossel writes, "But we don't place an infinite value on privacy. [...] What we really value is the freedom to choose when we'll do that and when we'll tell people to butt out. We can never tell government to butt out." Although one cannot factually state what all of society values, Stossel presents his viewpoint as if he is doing just that. By acting as if there is no room to argue, Stossel makes the reader more likely to agree with his perspective rather than consider alternatives.

Stossel's comparisons and declarative sentences allow him to effectively argue against government tracking of civilians. He appears blind to opposing viewpoints, but still manages to consider the complexity of the issue at hand: it's okay that the government is getting more involved, but not okay that it's involuntary on our part.