The Power of Blogging
Hey guys,
Working on my essay for my writing class. I can't think of what to write. Any ideas? Please comment with some (appropriate!) suggestions.
Sunday, October 03, 2004
Still don't have any good ideas for that essay. Btw, all your suggestions sucked; you guys really let me down...j/k =)... Anyway, I think I might write about diaries. But it seems to boring. Whatever, I will try it out and see how it goes.
Monday, October 04, 2004
Essay on dairies is not going very well.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
I give up on diaries. They are too boring. I need a new topic. What can I possible write about? I cannot find anything worth saying, or can I? I have an idea...
Thursday, October 07, 2004
How about this...
The Blog
Undoubtedly, you have noticed the urge to "blog" that has swept across the web and been ingrained into the online culture. Chances are that you or one of your friends owns a LiveJournal or a Xanga . Can you remember how many friends you are connected to on the Facebook ?
Nowadays, our society is more and more concerned about privacy; yet, strangely enough, many people opt to share their personal thoughts in a blog rather than keeping them private in a diary. Many young people (since they have all this time and nothing to do with it) keep personal blogs and write about their day-to-day experiences, complaints, and (maybe) furtive thoughts. Sometimes, there are poems, prose, songs, and more. But, what makes blogging truly revolutionary is the idea of allowing readers to contribute and to comment.
A Fad?
At first glance, blogging seems like the latest fad; it is the cool thing to do, because everyone else is doing it. All your blogger friends are having tons of fun, and since you didn't want to be left out, you just had to start one too. But, if blogging were just a fad, people would stop doing it just as quickly as they started (as is the case for the tried-it-once-and-that-was-it type of fad). Eventually, everyone would stop updating, and blogs would become extinct. Instead, there is an ever-growing, devoted following of hardcore updating-daily bloggers.
Students are often required to submit essays throughout the school year, however, many are not able to write an effective essay. After extensively reading and analyzing This I Believe narratives, I came across many essays that are great examples for students to use as a template for effective writing. One essay that stood out amongst the rest was, “A Grown-Up Barbie” by Jane Hamill; I recommend this short narrative for students that strive to achieve an effective essay because it provides useful rhetorical devices such as: anecdote, imagery and diction.
According to Catholics for Peace and Justice, “the just war tradition begins with a strong presumption against the use of force and then establishes the conditions when this presumption may be overridden for the sake of preserving the kind of peace which protects human dignity and human rights.” The Just War Theory states that there are seven conditions that must be met in order for a declared war to be a true and just war. The first of these values is Just Cause. This means that force can only be utilized to correct an aggression or evil. If the war is being declared out of spite or to seek revenge, the war cannot be defined as being just. Also, there must be a formal declaration of war and warning with spoken terms of what the aims are and what this war will plan to fulfill. The next criterion is Comparative Justice which means the injustice suffered by one party can NOT significantly outweigh the suffering from the other party. For example, if the initial attack o...
The question "Can war be justified?" plagued mankind since the first war. The Just War Theory holds that war can be just. The theory has evolved for thousands of years and modern theorists, such as Michael Walzer, author of Just and Unjust Wars, puts forth criteria for a just war, such as jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Jus ad bellum includes reasons for going to war, and jus in bello deals with the people who wage war. The criteria in jus ad bellum include; just cause, declaration by a proper authority, right intention, a reasonable chance of success, the end proportional to the means, and war as a last resort. Jus in bello includes keeping innocents outside the field of war, and limiting the amount of force used. Just War Theorists hold that all of these criteria must be followed for a war to be just. I will analyze The Just War Theories most debated arguments, self-defense, pre-emptive strikes, and the killing of innocents. In the second half of this paper, I will briefly explain Pacifism, and provide a counter argument for each Just War argument.
The CVS has decided it wants to halt cigarette sales. Cigarette smoking is very injurious to health. However, the government hasn’t stopped producing tobacco because of its economical benefits. This is an interesting topic for analyzing the changes it would bring to the economy of a country and whether it’s a good decision or not. Smoking is a personal choice for everyone; however in the long run it has an effect on the economy.
...wever, in general the American Dream is a misleading idea for success. ‘Willy Loman begins to grasp the truth that his life has reached its peak and many of his dreams were never met.’ Willy Loman wanted to live these dreams to establish his American Dream. But Miller is putting emphasis on that The American Dream is nothing but an illusion. Although, The American Dream affects our view of Willy as a tragic hero, from the play we conclude that Willy Loman's tragic flaws are what mainly construct this tragedy. .
Willy’s contradictory ambitions, his idealization on how to become successful, and the want to create and continue the family legacy.
The just war theory can be broken down into three components: jus ad bellum, jus en bello, and jus post bellum. Translated from Latin, these mean “justice before war, justice in war, and justice after war.” In this way, the Catholic Church is able to reconcile Jesus’s lofty teachings about loving your neighbor and causing no harm with protecting the innocent (Massaro 104).
Chinese government also increases taxation on tobacco, which reduce tobacco demand and increase tax revenue. The cigarette taxes include ad valorem and specific duty, and the combined taxes accounting around 38% of the retail price of cigarettes. A 10% raise in cigarette tax would increase government revenues by 27%. If increase cigarette tax per pack from 40% to 50%, the increase in central government tax revenue would be twice more than the loss in industry revenue, tobacco farmers’ incomes, and local tax revenue. Moreover, this tax increase could save about 1.44 to 2.16 million lives. Therefore, additional taxation on cigarettes might be a desirable public policy to reduce smoking in China (Hu et al. 17).
Increasing taxes, resulting in a more expensive product, would be an effective way to encourage tobacco users to quit and prevent children from starting to smoke. Taxes on inexpensive tobacco products should be equivalent to higher-priced products, such as premium-brand cigarettes, to prevent substitution in consumption. On a regular basis taxes need to be adjusted for inflation. Taxes regarding tobacco are already common to the public and would aid government revenues. This would make tobacco products a luxury item, resulting in a marginal decrease in sales from poverty stricken areas, and children. According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) people 18-24 years of age and people living below poverty level account for 42% of all cigarette smokers. Making it almost impossible to afford a tobacco habit to 42% of cigarette users would result in a decrease in tobacco use, along with the people who would hopefully quit due to the price hike. With a similar strategy to banning the sales, we do not want the public to think we are taking there freedom from them, taking small steps and slowly transitioning will be the key to a successful
Willy theorizes that if he was liked by more people than he would be more successful and closer to his dream. However, Willy doesn’t registered the idea that he isn’t well liked anymore or even at all. For one, Willy addressed some of the he encounter while traveling “I was going in to see the buyer I heard him say something about — walrus. And I — I cracked him right across the face.” Willy thinks that his appearance strongly affected how his customers viewed him “I’m fat. I’m very — foolish to look at, Linda”, and in conclusion he develops low self-esteem issues about his own appearance while clinging and praising the more handsome appearance of his sons “[Biff]’s so handsome in that suit. He could be a — anything in that suit!” for he thought they would do better than Willy. However, there are two examples in the story that explains why Willy failed in his journey of being liked by the masses. One instance is when Howard fired Willy from his job, Charley explains to him that being well liked never equals success but rather a success person “with his pockets on he was very well liked”. Although Willy thought he was well liked he suffered from the lack of people at his funeral. Willy’s wanted to have many people attend his funeral such as the funeral of Dave Singleman “'Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of
I, for one, am currently going through one. Buying a notebook is easy, but making the effort to write in one everyday is not. Didion also expressed that she had has struggled writing in her notebook. She states “At no point have I ever been able successfully to keep a diary; my approach to daily life ranges from the grossly negligent to the merely absent, and on these few occasions when I have tried dutifully to record a day’s events, boredom has so overcome me that the results are mysterious at best”(76). I see that I am not the only one that has reached this problem numerous times. My first time owning a notebook was when I was in middle school. I wrote it in at least once a day. I tried very hard to, but then I lost the notebook for a while. I eventually found the notebook and threw it out because I did not like what I had written. I wanted to not remember the middle school me and forget about her and my mindset because life was troublesome for me at that time. Moving along to the end of senior year in high school and I decide to buy a new notebook. I was excited about it, writing in it, detailing my life. After the first two weeks, the thirteen year old me visited me and I lost all types of interest to write in my notebook. I went from writing in it everyday to writing it in once every three weeks. It was quite dreadful. That was when I accepted the fact that I cannot run from who I
The use of corrective tax on cigarettes can reduce the number of smokers. “In the year after a 62-cent increase in the federal cigarette tax in 2009, cigarette sales declined by a historic 11.1%. Adult and youth smoking rates also declined” (Myers, 2014). With increase in cigarette tax, there is a reduction in smokers which has a very big impact on public health but also saving large number of smokers from premature death. But us we all know there is an extent to which this taxes on cigarettes work. Cigarette tax are the highest in New York at $ 4.35 per pack and with Massachusetts $3.51 just to mention a few. Evidence shows that wide differentials in cigarette taxes across the states have opened up market for smuggling cigarettes from low-tax state and selling them in high-tax state (Liz, Borean, 2014).
Do you remember when your sister used to write in her diary and how curious you were on finding out what she wrote in it? If you didn’t have a sister – do you remember keeping your own diary hoping that your mom would not find it one day and read it? At a young age, we all learn to keep a diary or journal. In elementary school, we may have been required to write in a journal in class replying to a question asked by the teacher like “How was your weekend?” or “How was your break?” Simple questions were asked to help generate ideas in our young minds and help us write our own story. But now that we are older, do we still have the opportunity to write our own story the same way we used to? Are we still able to release our emotions and reflect on events in our lives? Though many people see keeping a journal as childish or a waste of time, the effects of recording ones thoughts are beneficial.
The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. A few called themselves "escribitionists". The Open Pages webring included members of the online-journal community. Justin Hall, who began eleven years of personal blogging in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized as one of the earliest bloggers,[5] as is Jerry Pournelle.[citation needed] Dave Winer's Scripting News is also credited with being one of the oldest and longest running weblogs[6] [7]. Another early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site in 1994. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance, and such journals were also used as evidence in legal matters.
The Internet has changed the way we communicate. The difference between communication online and communication in “real life” is that when you are online, people cannot see you, and therefore have no idea who you actually are. So, people often feel a greater sense of freedom and anonymity, which allows them to reveal either who they truly are, or who they want to be. People often reveal their personalities differently online than in real life. The personalities formed in this free environment play an important role online. In “Psychology of Weblogs,” Grohol states that people use blogs because they enjoy hearing about other people living their lives; they especially enjoy strong or unique personalities. Grohol stated, “what’s the purposes of the thousands of small, individually-run sites? One word - personality” (Grohol).