Thomas Friedman is an op-ed journalist that works for The New York Times. He often writes about issues concerning the Middle East but has some focus on America and other foreign countries like China. He is Jewish, well educated, and sixty years old. His experiences as a teenager and the way he was raised influence how he writes and is the reason for his focus on foreign affairs for The New York Times. He has also more recently been focused on a green revolution that needs to happen soon. Thomas Friedman's passion for environmentalism started from his passion of the Middle East because he saw that the world is not on a stable path and a change needs to be made soon.
Thomas Friedman's past is key to understanding his writing topics and style. Thomas Friedman was born in Minnesota in 1953. He was raised in a Jewish family, and he went to Hebrew school five times a week before high school. He began his journalism passion by writing for his high school's newspaper, and he first became interested in the Middle East when he went on a trip to Israel over Christmas when he was fifteen years old, which ignited a passion in him that still drives him today. After high school, he was very successful in college, and he graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University with a degree in Mediterranean Studies. He then went on to get a Masters of Philosophy in Middle Eastern Studies from St Antony's College at Oxford. He then went on to pursue a career in journalism after he received his degrees(Biography).
The source for his passion about the Middle East is obvious, but how he also became passionate about environmentalism is less obvious. He wrote a New York Times bestseller book titled The World is Flat, which was about the rise of the middle ...
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... countries leads him to also be passionate about his own country. His travels, due to those passions and his job, are what allowed him to see the world and the state it is in. He sees the current trend that the world is heading towards and realizes that a revolution needs to happen. He also sees it as a way for the United States to benefit and grow. At the end of his book, he says "We need to redefine green and rediscover America and in so doing rediscover ourselves and what it means to be Americans … if we rise to the challenge [of a revolution] , and truly become the Re-generation- redefining green and rediscovering, reviving, and regenerating America- we, and the world, will not only survive but thrive in an age that is hot, flat, and crowded"(412). He believes that there is just enough time, if we start now, to save the world from the path it is heading towards.
T. Thomas Fortune is an African American speaker, journalist, civil rights leader, publisher, and editor who were born into slavery on October 3, 1856 in Marianna, Florida. T. Thomas Fortune was also known as Timothy Thomas. Fortune’s parents, Emanuel Fortune and Sarah Jane Fortune, were both slaves of Ely P. Moore. Timothy was their first son, but had one older sister and one younger sister along with a baby brother. Emanuel, Fortune’s father, was born from a slave mother and “who was the daughter of a mulatto slave mother and a Seminole Indian.” Emanuel’s father name was Thomas Fortune, and he was an Irishman who was killed in a duel when he was little. Emanuel was owned to a family named Russ. The Russ family’s had a son named Joseph, which was about the same age as Emanuel, who eventually became very close to Emanuel. Emanuel was given the chance to learn how to read due to his friendship with Joseph, but then he was sold Ely P. Moore which allowed him to marry Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane also was a mixed nationality. Jane’s mother had a white father and a slave mother, and Jane’s mother was an Indian. Jane was born in Richmond Virginia, in 1832, and later moved to Florida.
Powell and Bok’ autobiography and essay have an prideful optimistic attitude towards America. Bok says “As the world stands to-day no nation offers opportunity in the degree that America does the foreign-born” It proves that the assertion is true by showing the pride he has toward America by stating that no other nation offers what the US does. Powell says “And America that is still the beacon of light to the darkest corner of the world” The prideful tone Powell displays is shown in this quote by saying that America is the light in the dark corner. Powell and Bok both use writing to paint the prideful
One of the strongest parts is the questions-passage: the sender asks Americans what made them change, why the national-exaltation… He doesn’t look for the answers.
Change is something you are probably familiar with. In “Beneath the Smooth Skin of America,” Scott R. Sanders talks about many changes in his life. The author starts the story looking throw the eyes of himself as a child. As a child he remembers that all that was in his sight was all he could see. The author’s best example of this is he says, ”Neighbors often appeared…where they came from I could not imagine” (27). As the author begins to see more by leaving the area he was around so often he starts to see more and more things. He started moving around to different places and started seeing the things that he had not see before. The author points out many things that he began to see like the stores around the town and the different colors of places. The smell of the certain area over the one smell he was used to. In his travels to the south he noticed the bathrooms signs in the south read, “Colored” and “White.” All these different changes made his world seen bigger and bigger.
Kotkin is also a very widely published journalist. He wrote the monthly “Grass roots” column in the NY Times for many years. He has also published articles in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The American etc.
"America's present need is not heroics but healing, not nostrums but normalcy, not revolution but restoration .not submergence in internationality but sustainment in triumphant nationality."
He delves into the history of the word “environmental” as well as the history of environmental activism. He pinpoints the beginning of the movement to Rachel Carson. According to Quammen, she began the revolution by publishing her book Silent Spring. He says the negative connotations of the word began with her book, pairing “environment” and “the survival of humankind” as if they go hand in hand. This played a major role in the distortion of the word and the intentions of environmentalists.
had studied to become a minister before he left Harvard. He was a business man
author of this book. He has also has written many other good books such as The Grapes
One can instantly feel the emotion coming out in the first sentence; “Let America be America again.”(MLM) This clearly show that Hughes was very passionate about his country and wanted the reader to be just as well. He quickly lets the reader now that he is not talking about going back to the old traditions, but to the old ideology. Hughes explain it this way, “Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed” and “…where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme that any man be crushed by on above.” (MLM) This shows his true heart because he wanted America to go back to dreaming big for a better tomorrow, but what he doesn’t want is the injustice that was so prevalent in the past. He wanted the nation to go back to that old ideology “that we are all created equal”() and should be treated as such.
Capturing the Friedmans film is a interesting documentary that captured the lives of a middle class family that went through shame and embarrassment for child molestation. The family lifestyle depicts a middle class family that lived a certain way. Arnold Friedman, the father, the award winning teacher and his son, Jesse brought dysfunction into their family household. The fact that they lived in a well-known area in Jersey banned anyone from participating in certain things. Families around the area was in shock about the molestation charges cast upon Arnold. That situation was not considered to be a norm. Division arise quickly between the neighborhoods ,one side believed the Friedmans and on the other side believe they were guilty. In a sense,
Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Crevecoeur was a French born citizen who moved to New York and became a naturalized citizen of Great Britain. After living in America as a citizen for a while, Crevecoeur decided to write an essay titled “Letters from an American Farmer”. During this time, tensions in America between the colonists and loyalists were increasing, and because of this the idea of America as a sovereign nation and territory was becoming popular. Crevecoeur wrote this essay in order to discuss what it means to be an American, and why people should be honored to be called an American. Crevecoeur believes that America is a melting pot of the world, and is full of opportunities for anyone who lives there. In order to back up his claim, Crevecoeur uses rhetorical devices, especially pathos, while he does also use ethos and logos as well.
... conservationism. He is inspiration for all of us to see the natural world as a community to which we belong.
...from the building of skyscrapers to the railroads, and imperialism. We have moved all the way westward and what there is to do is to globalize our nation and continue to help improve the nations that we help guide. We first need to make sure that we are practicing democracy, free trade, our values, freedom, and our beliefs. This is what it means to be an exceptional nation. Other nations look to us, and when we don’t respond accordingly or if we don’t practice what we preach, they will call us hypocrites.
"Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,We, the people, must redeemThe land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.The mountains and the endless plain—All, all the stretch of these great green states—And make America again!” The free America is actually not free, the words on the constitution are just words. The dream has fade away. All these hard working people, all of their bloods and tears had really make the 1 percent of the American’s American dream came true. The reality is such a chaos for the narrator. he has suffered so much from this reality, so he now wants to share his idea to all the readers and try to wake them up, this is not the America that want, this is not the society they want. The American dream does not exist.