Charlie Mungovan
English 102
4/28/09
Reflective Essay Rough Draft
Starting the English 102 course was a very intimidating landmark in my first year of college. Like most students I had heard the rumors that we would need to develop a ten page research paper. When I say we had to develop a research paper I feel that is exactly what happened because over the course of the semester my research paper formed through the novels from class, online blogs, comments on my work, and class discussions. The reason a ten page research paper seemed so intimidating was because I never realized how helpful all work I had put in would be when I actually sat down to start my research paper. During the first few weeks of class we learned that our research paper would be about something involving technology and whether its rapid progression was a good or bad thing. I knew right away the direction that I wanted to take my research paper and just hoped that the books we read would flow with the topic I wanted to discuss.
Growing up I had always wondered why my entire family had always said how lucky we were to live in America. That’s not to say I don’t love my country, I do, but ever since I was a kid I can remember thinking that these people who lead us could get away with whatever they wanted and no one would ever know. This childhood suspicion was taken to a whole other level when the Iraq war started. I can remember my dad saying things like how we can get away with this we are not the world police or how could they invade Iraq when they still haven’t found any evidence of nuclear weapons? There was nothing I could think at sixteen years old after the war had been going on for three years, but to agree with him. The problem for me was how directly the conflict affected my life. My two best friends were brothers and had joined the military because their family couldn’t afford to send them to college. It was at this point in my life that I felt a strange resentment towards the leaders of our country because it made me wonder if Jake or Josh had died at nineteen and twenty years old; what would they have died for? These were my two best friends and to think of them dieing for our country without a clear reason just seemed wrong, not heroic. So when I was given the chance to research something like the Iraq War and the power of technology and manipulation in our government I felt it might give me some answers to why our leaders feel people like Jake and Josh should risk their lives for our country or it would only confirm my uncertainties.
The stories we were assigned in class would prove to show a significant relevance towards things like the Iraq War and recent relations with Iran, but I didn’t happen all at once. When we read the texts I had already somewhat of an idea about the direction I wanted to start my research, but knowing what I was hoping to research helped me to convey ideas in stories like Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle early on in the semester. On Tuesday, February 17th we had to turn in a blog online about the first stories we had read and it was at that this time I first pulled away the “real world message” form one of our novels that I had wanted to find. I said in my blog “I really like the Bokononist religion in the story (Cat’s Cradle) because it made me feel like Vonnegut was comparing it to our own government which let me focus on the interesting idea of our democracy being a sham.” This idea about the Bokononist religion was the basis of an essay we had to turn in later because I really liked the way Vonnegut questioned government control. I said in an essay from February, “The most important thing I took away from The Cat’s Cradle was the fraud behind the Bokononist religion. The people of San Lorenzo believe in the Bokononist religion even though it is punishable by death to support it or take part in any of the religious activities. The citizens of San Lorenzo are unaware that two men came across their island and invented the religion to create order among the people. Bokonon wasn’t a deity; he was simply a man who was trying to create order on the island. The man who came to the island with Bokonon was the opposite of Bokonon’s role and lead as a dictator. The people of the island only took part in the religious activities and supported Bokonon because it was illegal. When John figures out that the Bokononist religion is fake was when I really started to connect the story into my own life. I felt that Vonnegut was trying to compare the island of San Lorenzo to the United States. The island was supposed to be a democracy yet it was ruled by a dictator who had all the people on the island convinced they were free. I believe that Vonnegut uses the Bokononist religion to make readers question what they believe in. Is the United States really a democracy? How would a soldier know if he were dieing for democracy when he gave his life for The United States? These questions could seem controversial to some people, but really how much do we honestly know about what’s happening in our government? The United States is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but how does someone know when they are really free? “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” This quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe helps show the point Vonnegut is trying to get across with governments and their beliefs. People don’t have to be free or have a democracy as long as they can be convinced they are free.”
I didn’t know it at the time but the idea about the Bokononist religion from the Cat’s Cradle would later end up influencing my entire topic for my research paper. However I chose not to include this passage from the essay or anything about the Bokononist religion in my research paper because I felt like it was more of an outline that helped guide me to my controlling purpose about the dangers in creating new technology, a massive gap in intelligence among Americans and their leaders, and the threat of trusting our leaders with this powerful intelligence and technology. During a class discussion towards the end of the semester I was fortunate enough to have my research paper rough draft passed out in class, along with some of my blogs. What I noticed when classmates started commenting on it was how most of my blogs talked about the bokononist religion and how I had said it was the most important thing I came away from Cat’s Cradle with, but never included it in my research paper rough draft. The Bokononist religion section of Cat’s Cradle truly was the most important passage from anything we read because it showed me that I would be able to draw meanings from the novels we read and sufficiently relate them to something like democracy and the Iraq War, which was one of my major concerns I had about my topic. The reason I chose not to include the bokonism section of Cat’s Cradle in my research paper, but felt it was important to reflect on it, was because in order to explain to a reader what a fake religion called Bokononism was and how it affected the main character John took up way too much space. It would seem in a ten page paper that I would want to take up as much space as possible, but by taking a huge chunk of my essay and explaining how I related a fake religion called bokonism to our own government would have only confused readers and may have got them off track from my controlling purpose just wondering what bokononism even was. This section of the story also helped me to explore questions like is the United States really a democracy and how much do we honestly know about what’s happening in our government? Instead of a fake religion I wanted to take the questions I had found and put them into real world examples with direct quotes form the novels we read in class that would be less hard to explain and easier for a reader to grasp. Questions like this helped keep me on track when I was researching my topic, but also as I read other stories like David Nye’s Technology Matters.
When researching my topic about dangers in creating new technology, a massive gap in intelligence among Americans and their leaders, and the threat of trusting our leaders with this powerful intelligence and technology I came across things like David Nye’s example in Technology Matters about media. Nye talked about the movie Wag The Dog, which I would later put into my research paper because the movie was about a corrupt president that used a staged was in Albania to get public support after he’s caught in a sex scandal. When Nye said in his novel “If one danger is hegemony from the private sector, the equally daunting alternative is that the media can become a central apparatus of state control,” I knew right away that this would relate directly to the ideas I came away from the Cat’s Cradle and help convey my controlling purpose to my readers. The fiction from a movie can also help show a reader that maybe the things we see in movies aren’t so far fetched after all. By using a movie instead of the bokononist religion I felt it would help a reader connect to my questions like how much do we actually know about what’s going on in our government better.
The class discussions helped direct my paper and get my general topic about government suspicion into a more specific research issue. The class itself also helped me develop my paper through their comments on my blogs. They repeatedly told me on February, 12th when commenting on a paper, that I needed to add more direct quotes from the novels we were reading to help support my ideas. I didn’t take the blogs very seriously during the class, but towards the end they came in extremely handy because when I went back to see what I had written in the past I noticed how everyone who commented was telling me to add quotes. So when I was writing my research paper I looked through my notebook and found where I had written page numbers of important quotes and added them in to help support the issues I was writing about. When I finished my research paper rough draft I couldn’t help but notice that it flowed much better than the essays I had written earlier in the semester. Overall the opinions of my classmates as well as Ms. Booker’s on my essays helped make my research paper much easier to write. When writing my research paper I wanted to get across to the reader that dominant government control can ultimately lead to fascism and become to overwhelming to retaliate against. I wanted to use real life examples from the Iraq war as well as the conflicts with Iran to raise some flags for anyone that would read my paper, but more specifically anyone who had someone close to them die or fight in Iraq. After the first conferences about our rough drafts, Ms. Booker helped show how important it was to give my readers a scholarly source for my real life examples. I had used quotes from places like USA Today, but after I began researching articles through the library database I realized how valuable a scholarly source actually was to my research paper. Instead of using quotes that were in very layman terms I was able to use ones that were superbly educated and well researched. By taking a scholarly source and using it to back up my ideas that I took from the stories we read in class, I was able to show a much stronger support for my theme and end up with what I felt was a polished and refined research paper.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Research Paper Rough Draft
Is the United States really a Democracy? How would a solider know he were dieing for democracy when he gave his life in Iraq? These questions could seem controversial to some people, but really how much do we honestly know about what’s happening in our government? As technology continues to grow and help humans prosper so do the consequences that coincide with these advancements. The United States is said to control the most powerful military in the world, but when the control of this military and its technological power are in the hands of the select few that lead the nation; Then when should the growth of technology be halted? When a government like the United States has an extremely smart scientist on their payroll, then I believe this is when the citizens of America should start to become concerned. Technology can be a great thing if it is controlled, but when the government’s most powerful possessions like military weapons, nuclear power plants, and surveillance systems malfunction or are used for the wrong reasons, this is when the lives and freedom of American citizen can be in jeopardy.
The danger of a government being in control of powerful technology like nuclear weapons is illustrated in Kim Vicente’s “The Human Factor.” Vicente explains the story of Chernobyl and a young scientist named Leonid who was in charge of the reactor on April 25, 1986. Leonid was covering a graveyard shift during an experimental test that had begun taking place earlier that day. (The Human Factor, 10) Leonid and the other scientists never noticed that the reactor was about to crash because the test that was happening required that safety system be disabled. (10) “To make matters worse, the thousands of indicators on the wall-sized consoles in front of (Leonid) Toptunov presented a bewildering array of data, but not enough information, and so the gravity of the situation wasn’t obvious to him.” (10) This meant that Leonid never realized the severity of the circumstances until it was too late and the reactor exploded launching radioactive material into the atmosphere. “The problem was that the plant designers hadn’t paid enough attention to the human factor – the operators were trained but the complexity of the reactor and the control panels nevertheless outstripped their ability to grasp what they were seeing.” (11) Vicente’s story of Leonid and Chernobyl shows how even the smartest people in the world can be overwhelmed by the complexity of technology. So as technology continues to expand so does the gap in intelligence. Leonid was a very intelligent soviet scientist, but as a result of his error thousands of people around the world were affected by the technology he and his colleagues were trusted with. As technology develops at an ever increasing rate, the risks should be taken much more seriously because perhaps the most dangerous human factor isn’t the mistakes of scientists like Leonid, but the mistakes of the leaders in charge of the technology.
The Story “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut shares a similar pessimism about technology as Kim Vicente’s “The Human Factor.” John, the main character of The Cat’s Cradle, is a writer who is trying to compile a story about the first atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Vonnegut shows, through John’s journey, how a gap in intelligence of powerful technology and leaving that technology in the hands of the government can be cataclysmic. One of the main people John is researching is the deceased Dr. Hoenikker and he finds that interviewing the Dr.’s children and touring his old office teaches him a lot about who he was. John starts to realize that Dr. Hoenikker is a bizarre man when he tours his office with a receptionist. “The old man had left the laboratory a mess. What engaged my attention at once was the quantity of cheap toys lying around. There was a paper kite with a broken spine. There was a toy gyroscope, wound with string, ready to whirr and balance itself. There was a top. There was a bubble pipe. There was a fish bowl with a castle and two turtles in it.” (Cat’s Cradle, 56) I felt that John noticing how strange Dr. Hoenikker is was a perfect example of how unique every human mind is and how one man can be extremely smart, but the drawback is that less intelligent people with too much power could use an invention, like Hoenikker’s nuclear bomb, to inflict death and destruction. The Pentagon told the Bush Administration in April of 2006 that using nuclear military force against Iran was to only way to 100% guarantee they would end their nuclear programs. (BBC) The U.S. presented allegations against Iran that they were trying use their civil nuclear energy program to build nuclear weapons. Although the Pentagon and Bush Administration had evidence that this could be happening, a rash decision like bombing their energy program could have drastic side affects.(BBC) In an article for the BBC Paul Reynolds said, “A nuclear "bunker-buster" would produce large amounts of radiation. This could cause thousands of casualties among civilian populations. The Federation of American Scientists says that "the bombs would penetrate at most only a few meters into rock, causing no reduction in blast, fire, or fallout damage on the surface. The largest would have blown out a crater almost a thousand feet across and thrown a cloud of radioactive fallout tens of thousands of feet into the air where it would be blown hundreds of miles downwind." (BBC) The Bush Administration had a clear stake in the effort to attack Iran because they didn’t want Iran to allow nuclear weapons to get into the hands of terrorists, but when someone like president George W. Bush is able to use a weapon, that would have been invented by a scientist like Dr. Hoenikker, to attack a country and possibly kill thousands of innocent civilians it should be a result of more than an assumption. The accusations that were presented at Iran and the threats of a war with them should raise some flags with any United States citizen. By leaving too much trust with today’s technologies in the hands of the government, Americans are giving up their freedom to prevent disasters. If the government had bombed Iran’s nuclear program the consequences would have had a drastic impact on every American citizen and it would have all been a result of the government abusing its technological power. So when situations like bombing Iran are looked at more closely it only makes someone wonder what types of technology have already been abused by our government.
The dangers in American Citizens trusting the government with technology is apparent today in the Iraq War. It all began when the Bush Administration presented accusations that Iraq was attempting to obtain cylinders that could be used for uranium enrichment.(Washington post) However after continued investigations by the UN in Iraq this “evidence” that was used to invade Iraq, was put into serious question. “It was by far the most prominent, detailed assertion by the White House of recent Iraqi efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. But according to government officials and weapons experts, the claim now appears to be seriously in doubt. After weeks of investigation, U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq are increasingly confident that the aluminum tubes were never meant for enriching uranium, according to officials familiar with the inspection process.” According to an article in “USA Today” the United Nations weapons inspectors were unable to finish their investigation of Iraq because the United States was beginning its invasion. The inspectors had even asked for more time to finish their investigation, but were still forced to leave four days before the United States invaded Iraq.(USA Today) Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also said “"I should note that in recent weeks, possibly as a result of increasing pressure by the international community, Iraq has been more forthcoming in its cooperation with the IAEA," he said, adding that inspectors still have found no evidence that Saddam Hussein has revived his nuclear program.” (USA today) So the question is, how could the Bush Administration have connived Americans that invading Iraq was urgent and a danger to United States citizens, when the UN couldn’t even finish its nuclear weapons investigation and had thus far found no evidence of nuclear weapons at all? The answer is that the government used its complex knowledge of media to convince citizens that a war in Iraq was urgent, showing just how dangerous a massive gap in the understanding of technology and too much power in the government can cost American lives and have horrible repercussions. This once again raises questions like how would an American soldier know he were dieing for democracy when he gave his life in Iraq when the entire basis of the war was under question? How can American citizens’ know that they live in a democracy and not a fascist country where the decisions are dictated by the government through manipulation when the Bush Administration was able to wage war against Iraq simply out of accusations? David Nye exemplifies this idea of predominant government influence in his novel “Technology Matters.” In Chapter eleven on page 218 Nye talks about a movie called Wag the Dog where a president creates a fake war in Albania to help keep him in office and seem heroic after he is caught in a sex scandal. The president in the movie uses the fake media that was made in a studio to convince American citizens that he is a good leader and is handling the conflict overseas very well. David Nye uses this movie as an example in his book because he want to show his readers that things we see in movies and think could never happen, may not be so far fetched after all. Nye is also showing that the government’s control of technology is dangerous because as Americans put more trust in the government we continue to know less and less about what kinds of technology are being used in things as simple as the media. “If one danger is hegemony from the private sector, the equally daunting alternative is that the media can become a central apparatus of state control.” (Nye Technology Matters, 218)
In Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, Dr. Hoenikker created another extremely powerful weapon called ice-nine. The scientist made it because a Marine General had asked him to invent something to get rid of mud so vehicles could travel easier. However the new ice-nine had the potential to freeze water molecules, which would inevitably freeze all the water on Earth. John was talking to Dr. Hoenikker’s old lab partner who said, “But supposes, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle…?” Vonnegut seems to illustrate the idea that too much technological power in the control of the government and its military is a very dangerous thing. This idea holds true today with the possibility that our government could have attacked Iran and caused a nuclear fallout. When should a government be limited to advancements in certain fields of technology like military weapons? This is a difficult question because as technology continues to grow so does the gap of intelligence between American citizens and the government, but if Americans continue to believe that technological advancement is a good thing, then there wont be an end to the growth in powerful weapons and a precarious faith in the government with new and existing technology will elevate.
The danger of a government being in control of powerful technology like nuclear weapons is illustrated in Kim Vicente’s “The Human Factor.” Vicente explains the story of Chernobyl and a young scientist named Leonid who was in charge of the reactor on April 25, 1986. Leonid was covering a graveyard shift during an experimental test that had begun taking place earlier that day. (The Human Factor, 10) Leonid and the other scientists never noticed that the reactor was about to crash because the test that was happening required that safety system be disabled. (10) “To make matters worse, the thousands of indicators on the wall-sized consoles in front of (Leonid) Toptunov presented a bewildering array of data, but not enough information, and so the gravity of the situation wasn’t obvious to him.” (10) This meant that Leonid never realized the severity of the circumstances until it was too late and the reactor exploded launching radioactive material into the atmosphere. “The problem was that the plant designers hadn’t paid enough attention to the human factor – the operators were trained but the complexity of the reactor and the control panels nevertheless outstripped their ability to grasp what they were seeing.” (11) Vicente’s story of Leonid and Chernobyl shows how even the smartest people in the world can be overwhelmed by the complexity of technology. So as technology continues to expand so does the gap in intelligence. Leonid was a very intelligent soviet scientist, but as a result of his error thousands of people around the world were affected by the technology he and his colleagues were trusted with. As technology develops at an ever increasing rate, the risks should be taken much more seriously because perhaps the most dangerous human factor isn’t the mistakes of scientists like Leonid, but the mistakes of the leaders in charge of the technology.
The Story “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut shares a similar pessimism about technology as Kim Vicente’s “The Human Factor.” John, the main character of The Cat’s Cradle, is a writer who is trying to compile a story about the first atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Vonnegut shows, through John’s journey, how a gap in intelligence of powerful technology and leaving that technology in the hands of the government can be cataclysmic. One of the main people John is researching is the deceased Dr. Hoenikker and he finds that interviewing the Dr.’s children and touring his old office teaches him a lot about who he was. John starts to realize that Dr. Hoenikker is a bizarre man when he tours his office with a receptionist. “The old man had left the laboratory a mess. What engaged my attention at once was the quantity of cheap toys lying around. There was a paper kite with a broken spine. There was a toy gyroscope, wound with string, ready to whirr and balance itself. There was a top. There was a bubble pipe. There was a fish bowl with a castle and two turtles in it.” (Cat’s Cradle, 56) I felt that John noticing how strange Dr. Hoenikker is was a perfect example of how unique every human mind is and how one man can be extremely smart, but the drawback is that less intelligent people with too much power could use an invention, like Hoenikker’s nuclear bomb, to inflict death and destruction. The Pentagon told the Bush Administration in April of 2006 that using nuclear military force against Iran was to only way to 100% guarantee they would end their nuclear programs. (BBC) The U.S. presented allegations against Iran that they were trying use their civil nuclear energy program to build nuclear weapons. Although the Pentagon and Bush Administration had evidence that this could be happening, a rash decision like bombing their energy program could have drastic side affects.(BBC) In an article for the BBC Paul Reynolds said, “A nuclear "bunker-buster" would produce large amounts of radiation. This could cause thousands of casualties among civilian populations. The Federation of American Scientists says that "the bombs would penetrate at most only a few meters into rock, causing no reduction in blast, fire, or fallout damage on the surface. The largest would have blown out a crater almost a thousand feet across and thrown a cloud of radioactive fallout tens of thousands of feet into the air where it would be blown hundreds of miles downwind." (BBC) The Bush Administration had a clear stake in the effort to attack Iran because they didn’t want Iran to allow nuclear weapons to get into the hands of terrorists, but when someone like president George W. Bush is able to use a weapon, that would have been invented by a scientist like Dr. Hoenikker, to attack a country and possibly kill thousands of innocent civilians it should be a result of more than an assumption. The accusations that were presented at Iran and the threats of a war with them should raise some flags with any United States citizen. By leaving too much trust with today’s technologies in the hands of the government, Americans are giving up their freedom to prevent disasters. If the government had bombed Iran’s nuclear program the consequences would have had a drastic impact on every American citizen and it would have all been a result of the government abusing its technological power. So when situations like bombing Iran are looked at more closely it only makes someone wonder what types of technology have already been abused by our government.
The dangers in American Citizens trusting the government with technology is apparent today in the Iraq War. It all began when the Bush Administration presented accusations that Iraq was attempting to obtain cylinders that could be used for uranium enrichment.(Washington post) However after continued investigations by the UN in Iraq this “evidence” that was used to invade Iraq, was put into serious question. “It was by far the most prominent, detailed assertion by the White House of recent Iraqi efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. But according to government officials and weapons experts, the claim now appears to be seriously in doubt. After weeks of investigation, U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq are increasingly confident that the aluminum tubes were never meant for enriching uranium, according to officials familiar with the inspection process.” According to an article in “USA Today” the United Nations weapons inspectors were unable to finish their investigation of Iraq because the United States was beginning its invasion. The inspectors had even asked for more time to finish their investigation, but were still forced to leave four days before the United States invaded Iraq.(USA Today) Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also said “"I should note that in recent weeks, possibly as a result of increasing pressure by the international community, Iraq has been more forthcoming in its cooperation with the IAEA," he said, adding that inspectors still have found no evidence that Saddam Hussein has revived his nuclear program.” (USA today) So the question is, how could the Bush Administration have connived Americans that invading Iraq was urgent and a danger to United States citizens, when the UN couldn’t even finish its nuclear weapons investigation and had thus far found no evidence of nuclear weapons at all? The answer is that the government used its complex knowledge of media to convince citizens that a war in Iraq was urgent, showing just how dangerous a massive gap in the understanding of technology and too much power in the government can cost American lives and have horrible repercussions. This once again raises questions like how would an American soldier know he were dieing for democracy when he gave his life in Iraq when the entire basis of the war was under question? How can American citizens’ know that they live in a democracy and not a fascist country where the decisions are dictated by the government through manipulation when the Bush Administration was able to wage war against Iraq simply out of accusations? David Nye exemplifies this idea of predominant government influence in his novel “Technology Matters.” In Chapter eleven on page 218 Nye talks about a movie called Wag the Dog where a president creates a fake war in Albania to help keep him in office and seem heroic after he is caught in a sex scandal. The president in the movie uses the fake media that was made in a studio to convince American citizens that he is a good leader and is handling the conflict overseas very well. David Nye uses this movie as an example in his book because he want to show his readers that things we see in movies and think could never happen, may not be so far fetched after all. Nye is also showing that the government’s control of technology is dangerous because as Americans put more trust in the government we continue to know less and less about what kinds of technology are being used in things as simple as the media. “If one danger is hegemony from the private sector, the equally daunting alternative is that the media can become a central apparatus of state control.” (Nye Technology Matters, 218)
In Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, Dr. Hoenikker created another extremely powerful weapon called ice-nine. The scientist made it because a Marine General had asked him to invent something to get rid of mud so vehicles could travel easier. However the new ice-nine had the potential to freeze water molecules, which would inevitably freeze all the water on Earth. John was talking to Dr. Hoenikker’s old lab partner who said, “But supposes, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle…?” Vonnegut seems to illustrate the idea that too much technological power in the control of the government and its military is a very dangerous thing. This idea holds true today with the possibility that our government could have attacked Iran and caused a nuclear fallout. When should a government be limited to advancements in certain fields of technology like military weapons? This is a difficult question because as technology continues to grow so does the gap of intelligence between American citizens and the government, but if Americans continue to believe that technological advancement is a good thing, then there wont be an end to the growth in powerful weapons and a precarious faith in the government with new and existing technology will elevate.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Blog Assignment #9
1.) National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. The 9/11 Commission report. Executive summary. Issue brief no. GAO-04-1033T. Washington, DC: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004.
2.)Beinhart, Larry. American Hero. Ballantine Books, 1994.
3.)Chiles, James R. Inviting disaster lessons from the edge of technology : an inside look at catastrophes and why they happen. 1st ed. New York: HarperBusiness, 2001.
During my search for sources I found the 9/11 Commission Report and the information inside of it was very useful for my topic. Because my topic focuses on the use of media and technology as a way to manipulate American Citizens during the Bush Administration this report could help to show how the Bush Administration deceived the public. By using direct and specific examples from the 9/11 Commission Report I can show exactly how the government has deceived Americans with exact examples from their own report. The other source I used was the book Inviting Disaster. This book helped me to see some specific examples of how dangerous technology can be when it’s controlled by the government and the repercussions that could be a result form this. The last book I used was called American Hero and this is very useful because instead of using the movie Wag the Dog as a source I can now use the movie it was based off of and understand more clearly the ideas the author wanted to portray. After reading these sources I have been able to adjust my topic and get more specific with things like the bush administration. However I’m still struggling with my topic a little because I want it to be the use of media and technology as a way to manipulate American Citizens during the Bush Administration, but I cant narrow down the word technology because it spans during into many different and very important things during that time frame.
2.)Beinhart, Larry. American Hero. Ballantine Books, 1994.
3.)Chiles, James R. Inviting disaster lessons from the edge of technology : an inside look at catastrophes and why they happen. 1st ed. New York: HarperBusiness, 2001.
During my search for sources I found the 9/11 Commission Report and the information inside of it was very useful for my topic. Because my topic focuses on the use of media and technology as a way to manipulate American Citizens during the Bush Administration this report could help to show how the Bush Administration deceived the public. By using direct and specific examples from the 9/11 Commission Report I can show exactly how the government has deceived Americans with exact examples from their own report. The other source I used was the book Inviting Disaster. This book helped me to see some specific examples of how dangerous technology can be when it’s controlled by the government and the repercussions that could be a result form this. The last book I used was called American Hero and this is very useful because instead of using the movie Wag the Dog as a source I can now use the movie it was based off of and understand more clearly the ideas the author wanted to portray. After reading these sources I have been able to adjust my topic and get more specific with things like the bush administration. However I’m still struggling with my topic a little because I want it to be the use of media and technology as a way to manipulate American Citizens during the Bush Administration, but I cant narrow down the word technology because it spans during into many different and very important things during that time frame.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Blog Assignment 7
For this essay assignment I used two sources that were both movies because I considered it a rough essay and wanted to focus on the films first. So as a viewer when I was watching these movies I had to think as if something like a persons identity being completely changed in “The Net” could actually happen. When I watch most movies I find myself thinking that something like that could only happen in a movie, but when viewing “Wag the Dog” and “The Net” it helped to make the ideas Nye was trying to convey more serious by thinking the movies could happen in real life. Nye’s point in using these films as sources in his essay’s was to show that the plots in both films were not so far fetched and could actually be a possibility in today’s society. I really enjoyed that fact that I was able to use these movies as sources because even though reading is not always boring it was still a neat experience to be able to watch a movie and relate it to my essays topic. When doing the peer editing I found that once again most of the comments were very positive, but both people who commented felt that my essay may have been a bit too short. These comments helped because I felt that if both people felt that the rough draft was too short then it would be a good idea to expand on the topics more. I also liked seeing how other students were writing their essays and noticing similarities between theirs and my own helped confirm some things I had in my essay. From what I noticed with Nye’s sources he used them very well to tie into his own ideas and I think that is the most important part. Even if the source you are using may not agree with your opinion on their writing you can still pull away important concepts from a source and the better you explain how the topics relate the better it will help make the source a more powerful part of an essay. The most important part of writing a research paper will be to do a source justice when using it as an example. I don’t want to try and make the source seem irrelevant and by tying in as many good ideas as possible it will ultimately help my research papers topic to be clearer.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Nye Assignment 9
The story technology matters by David Nye uses sources from other authors, but also explains key ideas through examples from movies. In Chapter eleven on page 218 Nye talks about a movie called “Wag the Dog” where a president creates a fake conflict overseas to help keep him remain in office after a sex scandal. The president in the movie uses fake media that was made in a studio to help make the conflict seem real to the average American citizen. Nye also uses the movie “The Net” in his book, which is a story about a corporate software company that is able to hack into peoples “medical records, police files, and bank accounts” to falsify data and ruin people’s lives. After a programmer figures out what’s happening, the corporation ruins her records and makes her seem like a drug addicted prostitute felon who is wanted by police. The programmer, who is intelligent enough to fight back, proves her real identity and defeats the corporation by exposing evidence. The story may seem impossible to some people, but as the corporate world controls more and more of our country and decisions, the possibility is not so far fetched but the outcome of the woman is much less likely to end so happy.
David Nye uses the ideas behind these movies to help point out to his readers that we do not live in a perfect world. Nye helps to show how dangerous technology can be if it is in the wrong hands and also used for the wrong reasons. When Nye uses a movie as a real life possibility it helps to create a sense of realization that these types of scandals could actually be happening.
These types of situations that Nye explores through the movies “Wag the Dog” and “The Net” help to bring a new aspect into something like my final research paper. When writing my first papers I focused more on an idea similar to “Wag the Dog.” Which was that the government could use certain scenarios to trick the public into supporting a war. “Wag the Dog is a perfect example of this and will help to confirm that point in my final research paper, but the movie “The Net” brings a different and important topic to the table. “The Net” shows how our rights and freedoms can be stripped from us through technology. Things like wire tapping could be a very important subject in today’s world that this movie could help relate to.
David Nye uses the ideas behind these movies to help point out to his readers that we do not live in a perfect world. Nye helps to show how dangerous technology can be if it is in the wrong hands and also used for the wrong reasons. When Nye uses a movie as a real life possibility it helps to create a sense of realization that these types of scandals could actually be happening.
These types of situations that Nye explores through the movies “Wag the Dog” and “The Net” help to bring a new aspect into something like my final research paper. When writing my first papers I focused more on an idea similar to “Wag the Dog.” Which was that the government could use certain scenarios to trick the public into supporting a war. “Wag the Dog is a perfect example of this and will help to confirm that point in my final research paper, but the movie “The Net” brings a different and important topic to the table. “The Net” shows how our rights and freedoms can be stripped from us through technology. Things like wire tapping could be a very important subject in today’s world that this movie could help relate to.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Blog #5
When reading through the first assigned chapters of David Nye’s “Technology Matters” I had a hard time seeing any relations to “The Cat’s Cradle” and “The Human Factor.” However after reading through chapter eleven in “Technology Matters” I started noticing how the previous books we had read were helping me interpret Nye’s book. In Chapter eleven on page 218 Nye talks about a movie were a president creates a fake conflict overseas to help keep him in office. The president in the movie uses fake media that was made in a studio to help make the conflict seem real to the average American citizen. After reading “The Cat’s Cradle” this section of chapter eleven made more sense to me because Kurt Vonnegut seemed to use the Bokononist religion to show how people can be convinced into things by their government. However if the average person is able to be convinced through things like the media on a television then we are not really free people, we are slaves to manipulation and corporate control. Another subject in chapter eleven was when Nye talked about another movie where a corporate software company was able to hack into peoples “medical records, police files, and bank accounts” to falsify data and ruin people’s lives. After a programmer figures out what’s happening the corporation ruins her records and makes her seem like a drug addicted prostitute felon who is wanted by police. The programmer, who is intelligent enough to fight back, proves her real identity and defeats the corporation by exposing evidence. The story may seem impossible to some people, but as the corporate world controls more and more of our country and decisions, the possibility is not so far fetched but the outcome of the woman is much less likely to end so happy. In “The Human Factor” Kim Vicente talks about how the average human has no chance of solving a complex disaster like Chernobyl. This clearly supports Nye’s example about the movie. There is no chance that an average person who stumbled across a corporations corrupt computer program could stop them from ruining their identity and life. The girl in the movie was a genius, but the average human would be caught by the police and put in jail for their new record the corporation made them. On page 218 Nye says that “Future technologies in nanotechnology and other things like robotics will force legislatures to make hard and potentially irreversible choices.” This is a huge concept in the readings we have read so far this semester because things like nanotechnology could result in disasters far great than Chernobyl and cause “The Human Factor” to end life as we know it. Nanotechnology is extremely tiny machines on a molecular level that could be controlled to perform tasks in the future. They could be put into someone’s body to kill cancer or even used to destroy carbon in the atmosphere and help reduce global warming. However software would control this new technology and if it were put into the wrong hands or mistakenly used to do something like destroy oxygen in the atmosphere then a phenomenon scientists call the “grey goo” would occur. “Grey goo” is and apocalyptic condition where the nanotechnology would continue to replicate itself and destroy all matter on earth leaving nothing but a grey goo behind. Nye says “complex technologies demanded more resources and lengthened the gap between making and possible use.” This directly relates to things like nanotechnology and Nye is simply saying that technology is not as simple as an axe or arrow anymore. Technology needs to be respected and used more carefully in the future so we can preserve our way of life and prevent disasters.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Peer Editing
When writing this essay there were many things that played a role in the direction and opinions I took. To start my essay I focused on writing about how technology has advanced so fast in our culture and agreed with Vicente about how this isn’t such a great thing. I liked the idea that the human factor is a dangerous thing that could grow out of control if we are not careful. However as I began to read “The Cat’s Cradle” I noticed how Vonnegut shared this view with Vicente, but also had other interesting topics. I really like the Bokononist religion in the story because it made me feel like Vonnegut was comparing it to our own government which let me focus on the interesting idea of our democracy being a sham. The structure of my essay was to show the disadvantages of the human factor while giving other ideas through Vonnegut’s text about how deceived we as a people could all be. I wish that I may have noticed the ideas about the Bokononist religion earlier in the text because it may have helped me to come away with other hidden meanings. I liked the peer editing with blogs more that doing it in class because it allowed me to read a few other essays and not have to rush to finish during a set time period I class. Being able to thoroughly read another students text allowed me to see the ideas others were taking away from the text and also give little bits of advice that weren’t rushed. Overall the exercise seemed like a good way to look deeper into things I could fix with my own writing while at the same time helping other students to work on theirs.
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