Thoreau and MLK, Jr.

“Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau and "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. are two great essays reflecting American history. The two essays are written on similar subjects but what is different is how they are written.

Thoreau speaks strongly on his views against the government. His essay was written to the people who feel the same as he does. Thoreau believes that the government is only strong because it is a majority not because it is the most legitimate view point. He states that people don’t always have to follow the law but do what is right instead. Thoreau thinks to much respect for the law leads people to do many unjust things.

In Martin Luther Kings paper “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther King, Jr. writes to a group of white clergy men, about the injustices of African-Americans particularly in the south. King writes to change the mind and view points of those who don’t agree with him.

In both papers Thoreau and King call for change. They write about problems dealing with American justices by using facts from slavery and the Mexican War. King and Thoreau also have been to jail for standing up for what they believe in. They build strong ethos and pathos. King compares what he is doing and what should be done to what Biblical figures and God did to appeal to the Christian clergy men. He builds strong pathos by discussing historical events such as the Holocaust and Hitler. Thoreau has creditability from his actions and references to Confucius.

The two are written in different styles though. Thoreau sees the issue one way and believes his way is right, it’s black and white. His argument is very direct and masculine and speaks in a strong tone. And King writes his letter with a more sympathetic letter looking for a common ground and willing to compromise; but at the same time supports his argument strongly. He writes with a rogerian argument, with many acknowledge and responses. He also writes in a sarcastic tone to prove his point. King uses words such as we, you, one for all, let us all hope, brother, to show that he wants to work with the people to find a solution rather than implementing his solution completely. While the two essays were written for different audience, occasions and purposes they both show how powerful putting words together can be.

Procrastinators Anonymous

Password: IRISH

-using this pass to replace an older blog.

Thanksgiving

It’s that time of year where the weather’s cool, trees are changing color, and leaves are falling and it’s time for thanksgiving. To me Thanksgiving is a holiday, a break, and a family gathering. Especially a family gathering, my house has always been the Thanksgiving gathering place since I can remember. My family from all over the east coast comes to spend thanksgiving at our house. That means annoying cousins, longer time to get food, and always having to sit at the kids table instead of the dining room table. My mom takes a whole week for preparing all the food for Thanksgiving, we even have two extra refrigerators and extra freezer that gets filled up with all the food. Since all of my family is Arabic and Thanksgiving is traditionally an American holiday, my mom incorporates both types of food, American and Arabic. We have the turkey, stuffing and ham but they are surrounded by Arabic food and even the turkey has an Arabic touch to it, but none the less I love the food. We do all gather around before we eat or at least the adults do, the kids are too impatient to wait, and someone asks the question. “Who would like to pray and give thanks?” Typically this is the time where my parents call me out to do it but after the year I gave an obnoxious ten minute speech of what I was thankful for to get back at the adults who were bickering about how us kids were ungrateful, they stopped asking me the next Thanksgivings. What’s Thanksgiving without football? After eating all the men in the house along with myself watch the football game in our family room. My dad and I make a bet for a small wager on the game, but even if I lose my dad gives me the money anyways. After great food, and good times with the family I get to have a good night sleep on the couch because I have to give up my room to my family who is visiting.

Obama's First Year

Leading up and during the election there was much anticipation and hype for the democratic nominee Barack Obama and the need for "change". After Obama’s victory for president there were many promises and calls for reformation and changes but it has been a year and I have not seen or felt much change. I don’t think Obama has lived up to his hype so far. I may not be the most knowledgeable person on politics and news but for the most part when I hear Obama’s name mentioned on the news it is usually about how he has not done or accomplished much in office. Without even having to watch the news or somebody tell me what Obama has done or not done, I can tell there hasn’t been any change really just from my everyday life and observations. Life is pretty much the same as it was at this time a year ago. I am pretty sure Obama’s approval rating has been on the decline as well. Some of the significant issues we had last year that were supposed to be addressed by Obama are still the same. We still have a significant amount of troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. There might be reasons why we can’t pull our troops out but I remember Obama campaigning for getting the troops out as fast as possible. And as for gas prices for a while they were pretty low but over the past months gas has risen a good amount. At some point in this year gas was $2.00 and less where I live and now gas is about $2.55. Overall as a public view of Obama and as an eighteen year old student I don’t see much that Obama has done. And he couldn’t win us the 2012 Olympics either.

"Dear Birth Parents"

In the letter written by Nate and Kristin, they address there concerns and hopes in attempt to be given the chance to be able to adopt a baby. They are writing to the birth parent of the baby, and express their wishes of wanting to adopt the baby and become parents. The purpose of the letter is really to persuade the mother into choosing them to be the foster parents of her child. They feel like they are the best choice for being the future parents. They mentioned there difficulties with fertility issues, but mention how it has led them to this wonderful option of adopting. They give reasons to support their claim of becoming the parents by talking about how Nate has already been around and is experienced with living and having an adopted brother. They also talk about their past and how they had always planned on adopting even if they could conceive children of their own. They say how they wanted two biological children and two adoptive children. This reasons should make the birth parents more comfortable with choosing Nate and Kristin as becoming the adoptive parents. The point of view of the biological parents are mentioned by Nate and Kristin when they say we know how difficult this must be for you, but glad you are doing it. Nate and Kristin set up a claim, wanting to be the adoptive parents, and gave reasons why they should be and supported those with evidence from thier lifes.

JMU Reform

There are not really any negatives about JMU. The education is great, the facilities are great, teachers and food are great, overall JMU is a great school. The only noticeable thing that I see that could use improvement here at James Madison is increasing the diversity among the student population. I came from a very diverse high school less than 2 hrs away from James Madison, and James Madison is really not diverse. Within the university itself, they have diversity programs but there is not enough diversity to fulfill these programs. I feel the university should try harder to try and recruit diversity, I don’t think there is a diverse population applying to JMU in the first place. Maybe the minorities are not reached out to and do not know about James Madison as much, or they already know that the school is not diverse so they are scared to come here. If information was made more available and better attempts to promote diversity to future applicants then diversity would increase. I have made visits too many if the larger public colleges here in Virginia. I have been to University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, George Mason University, Old Dominion University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and I have noticed that all of these schools have a wider diversity among the student population compared to James Madison. From prior experiences mostly from my High School, I can tell that having diversity can benefit everyone. You can learn more and become more culturally and globally educated from having a diverse population. James Madison is making steps toward improvements in creating diversity but there could be improvements and better efforts to do so.

Seasons by the Feelings

There are many distinct characteristics that can be associated with the seasons that occur. We have divided the year into quarters by seasons, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring. I never really knew what season comes first or what we start off with but oh well. Growing up as kid I was always outside just like most other kids. I loved playing outside and only came in the house when my yelled for dinner. Being a kid all I did was go play, but not just tag or hide and go seek, I was always playing sports. My favorite thing growing up and still today is today is sports, basically every sport. At a young age I started my obsession with ESPN and my love of sports. I made my mom sign me up for every sport there was, I wanted to play every sport I saw on tv and every sport I saw another kind playing. So growing up all year round I was playing sports, I had practices almost everyday for all the sports I played. Being outside to play these sports I associated the sports i played with the seasons that I played them in. I played soccer in the fall and spring, and i can remember playing in the brisk weather with slight winds and getting a cold runny nose. And in spring I remember going to the fields feeling great, the weather was perfect and every one was outside at those times, walking there dogs, taking their kids to the park. And unlike fall, in the spring I wanted to stay at practices much longer than the practices were scheduled. For the winter i played basketball and hockey. Going to the games and practices the weather was unpleasantly cold, and sometimes snow covered the grounds. My mom would always make me throw on like three coats before she would take me to practices.

Today I don't play as much as I did when I was younger but every time a seasons starts, my first associations to them are sports and those distinct feelings I had growing up playing them. They say we have 11 million senses but we only use 40, I think as a kid we use a lot more, well at least I think I did.