No Detail is Overlooked as China Prepares to Celebrate

This article can be found here.

September 29, 2009

When I first saw this article, the first assumptions I made were in assuming the author's choice of the words "China" and "celebration" in her title. Employing this combination would incite simultaneous wonder and fear in her readers. If there's one thing I didn't expect at first glance, it was humor and sarcasm. The opener was gloriously cynical as it mocked the Chinese government's attempt to prohibit the interference of domestic pidgeons in the upcoming parade. But LaFraniere didn't stop there --only the author herself would appreciate such usage of rhyme in an official commentary article-- as she espoused humorous observations of the ridiculous efforts put forth by the Chinese government in ensuring perfection in the celebration of the People's Republic of China's 60th anniversary. Window peeping and balcony watching has been outlawed. Marchers have had mental health professionals assigned to their care. Knife sales have been prohibited-- to downplay all attempts by the Uighur people at rioting as they did during the Beijing Olympic Events. She then turned to citing the ludacris "measures" the ceremonial planners went to in assuring that the marchers were all "grouped according to height , with no variation of six centimenters". Her humor melds perfectly with the absurdity of each regulation. After hearing about the limiting of blinking to once every 40 seconds, or the forbiddance of collapse after 3 hours of standing, it's hard to know what's real and what's false. Her source was Dong Jingbei, the president of the Distric Carrier Pidgeon Association. Pft.

Trading Articles #4

Photo Journal: Portrait of Survival by Alison Wright of National Geographic in the January 2009 edition.

September 25, 2009

This article was written by a well-known photographer for the National Geographic magazine, Alison Wright. After a recent trip to Laos she felt the urge to write a very short article about her near-death experience on January 2, 2000. In leaving Tibet to go to Laos, Wright's bus took a route through a secluded jungle, when a sudden accident involving a logging truck led to utter destruction, leaving our heroine with "massive internal injuries, collapsed lungs, a shredded arm, a broken back, and multiple other fractures". As proper for a third world country's health care system, it took over 14 hours for Wright to be treated for her injuries. In the following years, she would have to teach herself to walk again and endure more than 20 reconstructive surgeries. She feels grateful to have her life and has discovered an even greater passion for photography and for the Tibetan people, who prize inner strength-- something she needed most in order to overcome her circumstances. Now that she realizes the fine line between life and death, she has found an interest in capturing 'endangered cultures' and their times when they are present on this earth, before they finally fade out. She uses her photography to contribute to her charity, the Faces of Hope Fund, which finances education and health care in the poor communities of Afghanistan and Asia. More than anything, she uses her life to emphasize the interconnections among the world's peoples.

Trading Articles #3

Strongest Dad in the World by Rick Reilly for Sports Illustrated.

September 23, 2009

The author of this article, Rick Reilly, seems to think that all he provides for his own children will never measure up to the amount of devotion Dick Hoyt pours into his disabled son. From the very beginning of the article, Reilly speaks very informally to his audience, joking with them about how his paying for his sons' text messaging or taking them to Sports Illustrated Swim Suit shoots makes him an above-average father. He then, very brusquely, tells his audience that, besides his awesome capability to provide his children with these worldly luxuries through his 'connections', compared to Dick Hoyt, he 'sucks'. This is how you know you're reading an article aimed for an audience of teenage boys and adult men with minds of teenage boys. The awful use of sarcasm-- "And what has Rick done for his father? Not much-- except save his life."-- are so blatantly obvious and elementary they could be coming out of the fingers of an adolescent. I doubt that the doctor set aside the disabled son's family and told them "He'll be a vegetable he rest of his life." Such writing is striving for high ratings and low brows. Any writer who uses the word "porker" to describe a man's physique is not writing a legitimate article, but rather, a blog post!

Trading Articles #2

On Time by Kahlil Gibran

September 22, 2009

Man is constantly trying to control time. He creates seasons and dates to guide it through the hoops that he lays out for it. But he and the universe know it is irrepressible. Man's capacity to love is just as boundless as time and transcends all. It, like time, is in constant motion inside of man. After contemplating this, if you still have the desire to repress the irrepressible into seasons, try to live in the season of the present and reminisce only of the past and future.

Trading Articles #1

September 21, 2009

In this political cartoon found in the editorial section of The Onion --isn't the whole paper one, big editorial?-- illustrator 'Kelly' depicts what he believes to be the different ideologies of today's teens and those of the past. He seems to indicate that news was valued more during the time of the 'newsboy', over 100 years ago in the 1900s. This isn't surprising because even basic necessities, like food, water, and leisure now taken advantage of by today's society were also cherished during these years. Take today's technological advances, opportunities, and higher standard of living and the teens of the past would be rocking out to ragtime music on their ipods, too. To start with, the teen from the past is, no doubt, atypical in any society at any time; and yet, there has always been a brown-nosing, goody-two-shoes like him, no matter the time period. Then, examine the pessimistic, apathetic depiction of the teen of today's society. It's hard to find someone that ignorant in today's society, yet there must have been one of his kind in the 1900s, too. The exaggerations and stereotypes are taken too extreme in this cartoon to even begin to consider the author's underlying intentions, as they can neither be taken seriously, nor relate to the Onion's young adult audience.

Canadian officer charged in killing of insurgent to face court martial

This article can be found here.

September 19, 2009

While on tour in Afghanistan on October 19, 2008, Canadian Captain Robert Semrau shot an "unarmed Taliban insurgent". He is now facing charges of second degree murder in addition to three other charges relating to poor conduct of a military official. The shoot-out was initiated when the Captain and his troops, with the support of the Afghan National Army and the US Air Force, began to fend off Taliban insurgents. When it was apparent that one of the soldiers of the attack that was left behind was not going to survive, the captain shot and killed him. He has had no previous blemishes on his record.

The ultimate question of this article concerns why the Captain shot the man, as the author does an excellent job in leaving the topic open-ended and unbiased. Did Captain Robert Semrau shoot the man to end the suffering of having to wait for medical support when it was more than likely the man was going to die, or did he do it out of sheer anger? And if it is for the first reason, should the Captain go to prison at all? Some would argue that it is even more ethical and compassionate to put a man out of his sufferings when death is certain. Others would argue that death is never certain and that allowing one man to shoot another, even if the act was not out of malice, but rather compassion, goes against the law and should be punished as an example of being tough on crime in the military. Still others believe that the Captain should be allowed to shoot the insurgent because he was our military enemy, putting all acts of kindness aside.

In the end, no matter the outcome, the Captain's clean record will be splotched. When war has not taken a soldier's life, it has taken a soldier's personal life.

Students Attacked at German School

This article can be found here.

September 17, 2009

It's interesting to see the similarities and differences between the breaking news that occurs at home and abroad; that's the main reason I wanted this blog to focus on international news, and it's articles like this that are most representative of my interest. When we think about the pronunciation of events like the Columbine or Virginia Tech shootings in our our country, we fail to imagine their existance in foreign countries and how devestating those occurrances must be in those regions. For example, the article cites that the German government became very in tune with school safety following the devestating attack of 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer in Winnenden. If you think of the time following the Columbine shooting, you'll remember the measures made -not only by the federal government, but local ones, too- in ensuring tighter security in our schools. And after the Virginia Tech shooting, there were outcries for more strict gun control in our country. Likewise, in Germany after the Winnenden attack, the government made their own gun control law adjustments. Above all, it's most intriguing to see that teen violence is universal, not something that those critical of the United States can cite as strictly an American phenomenon. This boy, armed with an ax and molotov cocktails, had as much motive and planning put into his act of destruction as the boys Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of the Columbine massacre.