To Shoot an Elephant

why did the writer feel so powerless even with the badge of authority?
why did he feel like a puppet?
what could he have possibly done in order to gain respect?


To start off, I understand the situation that George Orwell was in. He is a foriegner, in an environment that different than what he is used to. A european man living in Burma surrounded by a bunch of people that aren't even the same color skin as you let alone speak a lick of english or whatever your native tounge is. Back when I was younger, My parents decided that it would be a good idea to send me to an international school in Taiwan for the seventh grade. I had to leave the comfort of my own home, my friends, my family, and everything else related to what I was used to doing on a daily basis. Once in Taiwan however, I attended the first day of school and it was not a friendly experience. Although I am from an Asian descent, the Taiwanese children were not too friendly towards people that were not of their own race or ethnicity. My Chinese was butchered, just like all the other Chinese that are born here, and it was very hard to make friends. One day after school however, one of the other students invited me to go hang out with him and his group. Excitedly, I followed along with them to the market place. This market place isn't your ordinary shopping mall. It was wide open in the streets, with many vendors selling different things. One of the kids in the group spotted these expensive walkie talkies. Having no money, the guys pressured each other into stealing them. Apparently, the group picked me and I was in a spot to steal the walkie talkies. I noticed the shop owner to be a very old couple. I wondered that if I stole them, would it hurt their business? They must have been as old as my grandpa and grandma. Putting emotions aside however, I stole the walkies and ran for dear life. I could hear all the the kids laughing behind me running, and in the faint distance, the old grandpa yelling for us to come back. That was all he could do, just try to make us return them for he was way too old to catch up to us. When we got back, the group congratulated each other and myself, and we started playing with them. Looking back on that day however, I would have never done that again. I felt so bad stealing from helpless old people trying to make a living off selling small novelty things. But the pressure, the pressure to actually fit in with the crowd and actually make friends in a place so far away from home was too overwhelming for me I guess. Reading this piece, I felt that moment. The same feeling that George Orwell felt during his elephant ordeal.

essay #2

Geoffrey Laksmana
Prof. Brown
Eng. 1B
03/25/2013
Believe me, it’s the right thing to do
Water boarding. A rigorous, torture method that is meant to bring the weakness out of the most strongest people. No matter how strong you are mentally or physically, this method of torture is meant to and will make you break, spill out the spoils that lurk within the secret hard drives of your brain. Using just simple, primitive house tools that include a plank for you to lay down upon, a couple buckets of water, some straps to tie you down, and last but not least, a towel to help the process of making you suffocate and drown with ease. Once strapped down with your face covered in the deadly towel, you really have no way out. Either you drown, or you give up the goods.
In Christopher Hitchen’s essay “ Believe me, its torture”, Hitchens argues that water boarding is torturous and that it does not have a reliable, direct outcome of what its meant to do. Willing to strap himself down to be water boarded to understand what it feels like, Hitchen’s quickly gives up as he feels as if he is asphyxiated by the splashes of water. He later concludes that waterboarding is not justified due to examples of some cases resulting in unreliable data. Hitchen’s also claims that not only did he feel mass discomfort from being water boarded, but that he felt a small tingle of a child hood trauma that he once encountered. Now although Hitchen’s makes an unarguable claim that water boarding is indeed torture, what can we constitute as a torture method? What other method can we use that would be not only a fast and quick method, but also at the most least painful way?
I believe we can all agree that the feeling of being drowned is more of a psychological inflicting pain than a physical feeling. Maybe you haven’t felt the feeling of being drowned before, but if you have ever held your breath underwater for an uncomfortable amount of time, you understand that it is not painful, but more of a scare tactic that is playing in your head. When your body does not receive oxygen for a certain time frame, it will do anything in its power to be able to take a small, pathetic gulp of air. Doing anything such as, maybe telling the men water boarding you the information that they need in order for them to stop pouring water down your lungs.
Hitchen’s claims that this method of torture is unreliable, gives too much false information from the victim just so they can be able to take a break. If that is the case, what other techniques can we use in order to extract information effectively? Assuming that a terrorist is on the receiving end of the water boarding method, what makes you think that he will give reliable information by just being interrogated? Put yourself in the shoes of people that are in that situation. If you were to be interrogated rather than to be water boarded, you would be able to hold your lie so much longer than it would take where opposed to physical action being taken.
Torture however is torture. It is inhumane, and viewed upon to society as barbaric. But to be put into that barbaric state of mind, you must be desperate. For the united states to be so barbaric that they would have to torture people for information, they are desperate to find information that would help them stop terrorism from happening. With that being said, how can you consider or care about the life and well being of one person, when maybe two or more are at risk due to some diabolical plans?

Regarding the pain of others

Why does society blind itself from the death and destruction of pictures?

Why does the military only take journalists on only a select few missions?

Wouldnt these pictures shed new light to the public?


One of the things that I would first like to address after reading this essay, is that i believe  the public does not want to see things that are either true, or not pleasurable to the eye. With that being said, it is understandable to know why the general american public feels as if they have little control in what the government does and the decisions that impact us on a daily basis. Like the essay stated, only a few select reporters were sent in on certain missions during the afghanistan war. My thought on that statement is that the military wants to keep its image of being " the best you can be " or the " Be a hero" face. With the military controlling the press in what pictures can be taken, or what missions where they can tag along, I truly believe that they only want to make sure that the public sees what they want to see. Imagine a reporter filming, taking pictures of a heavy firefight that shows the death of a whole squad, or a bomb that instantly vaporized the enemy in full camera view. Sure the pictures could be biased, but neither truly show that were either losing or winning a war. It shows that war isn't for that eighteen year old fresh out of high school looking for an adventure where they can join this so called "elite club". With that being said, pictures and videos showing deaths would totally backfire on the military's advertising and recruitment campaign.

Not only are pictures of people being killed or are already killed not pleasant to view, but they stir up certain emotions that build by seeing them. Although not many newspapers or magazines show death at an upclose and personal level, the internet does. Remember that statement by the Al-Queda stating that they would behead captured infidels? Well they did. Not only did they behead them, they taped it for the whole world to see. Upon viewing the videos online, it made me feel not only sick, but scared of what the enemy was capable of. Sure they didn't have a massive bomb that would level a city, or any of the latest war technology, but just a chainsaw, the same one you would use to cut down a tree. By them releasing the video, it actually made me feel scared of what they are willing to do in order for us to meet their demands. Now if those pictures were to be published on the LA times rather than just some text claiming that so and so was beheaded, there would definitely be more social unrest that would intrude on what plans the white house has already made. whether good or bad for them, the picture of that one death, could set off, or scare a whole nation.

commentary#1 on Erik Arndt

  I really like the topic of addiction towards the internet, especially social media sites such as facebook. I also noticed that you backed up some facts using some sources, that made your essay more reliable in a sense to your arguments. I also like how you made the topic to your essay aimed towards people at a personal level, since you stated with facts that almost 50% of internet users use facebook. Due to those facts, i believe that your argument as I've said before, will interest the reader at a more personal level. Your essay is also at most arguable, since many people do not behave in the way that you have described them to be through your statistics and points, but nonetheless, is acceptable from your research. One of the things that i have noticed on your essay is that you could back some of your paragraphs up with more facts or related things to the topics that are being brought to attention. overall, your essay was an enjoyable read, and it does affect the reader at a more personal level frrom your facts.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

1.Why would the internet be making us stupid?
2.How can we turn the disadvantages of the internet to an advantage?
3. Even though the internet is having a negative effect on our attention span towards reading, can we make that a good thing?

    Upon reading Nicholas Carr's article, " Is Google Making Us Stupid?," I have noticed that the author tries to convey to the reader that the internet, is a matter in fact, turning our attention spans to mush. According to to Carr, he claims that due to the massive amounts of information being posted on the internet, our brains have learned to just skim through readings, and try to process the information that only seems important to us. This claim seems to be true, I mean, just look at your average magazine. Fashion magazines, to your gossip magazines, or even your informative magazines, the journalists and editors who created them seem to buff up the magazine by adding small little side notes and pictures which can be easily read by anyone. Little side notes and interesting pictures or facts that grab your attention, sometimes even with some of your favorite colors framing them. Nevertheless, we tend to look more at those side notes and pictures than we do pay more attention at the main articles the magazines were meant to convey for the week. Maybe it is the internet and all of its magical wonders that make us not want to pick up a novel anymore. Maybe it's just our fast paced lifestyle that doesn't give us time to read all the grey stuff, and just straight into the action. In the end, however, the internet and Google cannot be completely at fault for all of this. Technology has let us access information better than ever before, in a good way to put it at that. No more searching long hours at the library for some information. Now, with a click of some buttons, we can access that information with ease. The internet is in fact a big part of our lives now, and unless we live in some third world fascist country, we can access it almost everyday. Whether it be accessing public information online, or just checking our some of your favorite sites, the internet, does however play a large role in turning our attention span into "mush".