The Weight Of The Word By Chris Berg

It seems not a day goes by without news of a major calamity echoing in the chamber that is the news. This echo chamber might even lead you to think that we are living in the most dangerous time in history. Protest spring up in one city, wars start in another country, a terrorist group kills civilians, or North Korea performs a nuclear test. What this news might not tell you is that we are living in the most peaceful time, that less children die in birth today than ever before, that many diseases that were once prevalent have all but been eradicated. This is what George Saunders speaks off in his essay “The Braindead Megaphone” he asks use to imagine a man

Michael Clark suggests the author James Baldwin uses a theme of lightness and darkness to support the metaphors of childhood. Baldwin connects the culture of Harlem in the 1950s to lightness and darkness not only with childhood, but all stages of a person’s life. I believe Baldwin uses the motif to connect what one has learned as a child and transform those teachings and apply them within your adult life. During this time period, Harlem was flourishing with aspiring artists, writers and musicians. People in Harlem were free to create, explore and expand their ways of thinking. However, this freedom was followed by delinquency, crime and drug use.

Language is much more than a method of communication. Permeated within it are traditions, customs, and legacies of one’s culture. The identity of an entire population is in the distinct vocalizations of their native language. Unfortunately, as a wave of immigrants enters the United States at young ages, many face language barriers that pose significant challenges. Language barriers affect a multitude of immigrant populations to different degrees. This, in turn, causes many of them to abandon not only their native tongue but a piece of their ethnic identity, as well. In Maxine Hong Kingston’s personal narrative,“The Language of Silence,” she describes the difficulties she experienced throughout her childhood with a language barrier as a

Edward Snowden. This is a name that will be in the history books for ages. He will be branded a traitor or a whistleblower depending on where you look. Many Americans feel that Edward Snowden is a traitor who sold the United States’ secrets aiming to harm the nation. Others believe that he was simply a citizen of the United States who exercised his right to expose the government for their unconstitutional actions. It is important to not only know the two sides to the argument of friend or foe, but to also know the facts as well. My goal in this paper is to present the facts without bias and to adequately portray the two sides of the argument.

In Wendell Berry’s chapter, The Body and the Earth, he discusses the connection between all earthly inhabitants, and its descent into misguided chaos by impact of time, evolution, and industry. He uses evidence from historical literature, religious mindset, the development of gender roles and consumerism of the 1950s, and how one defines love, marriage, and interconnectedness between what Berry calls “members of Creation.” His opinions of sexual monogamy and the importance of self-discovery via entrance into the “wilderness” are expressed clearly, but as the essay moves through each sub-chapter, his explanations become scattered and difficult to follow. For example, Berry’s ideas on religion and the relationship between body and soul as

Black Elk Speaks, a personal narrative, has the features of many different genres. The different genres that I noticed were in the book were, autobiography, testimonial, tribal history, and elegy. Black Elk Speaks is divided into 25 chapters, which portray the early life of Black Elk. The author tells us that Black Elk was a healer and a great holy man. He was said to have this mystical vision since he was young. As a tribal history, it shows the change of the Sioux nation from pre-reservation to reservation culture, including their partaking in the ghost dance, the Battle of Little Big Horn, and Wounded Knee. Black Elk Speaks propositions testament to the price in human grief that the Sioux had to pay for the United States expanding westward. It grieves his cultural misplacement and the age of being innocent and being free.

The word “unbroken” often refers to many things like behavior, toys, or even the characteristics in people who are not willing to give up if things are difficult. Feeling unbroken I could relate to it when my best friends passed away when I was a kid. There were two times in my lifetime that I actually felt unbroken, It was when my best friend Bob and my uncle Martin passed away.

In an article published by “Opposing Viewpoints,” Michael Reagan, son of former president Ronald Reagan, wrote that “If found guilty [Bradley Manning and Julian Assange] deserve nothing less than death sentences for their unspeakable crimes.” Bradley Manning, a private in the United States Army released classified information to Julian Assange, the editor of the controversial Wikileaks website. Reagan suggests that if America had a president stronger willed than president Obama, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning would be found guilty of treason and be “stood up before a firing squad.” The release of classified information by Pvt. Bradley Manning, Reagan argues, gave aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. “By [Manning and Assange’s]

It is not surprising that the person responsible for the largest leak of classified intelligence in the history of the United States would be a very controversial figure. This essay will explore the life of Chelsea Manning, the classified material that was made public as a result of her leaks, and her eventual arrest and imprisonment. Upon close analysis, it can be shown that while Manning leaked classified material in an improper manner, the American people have a

I felt extremely connected to the true story Into Thin Air, written by Jon Krakauer, because of the people written about. I personally felt a connection to Beck Weathers. He is a doctor with strong political opinions that he knows how to back up. I am not a doctor, but I do have strong political opinions that I know how to support. I, like him, get into multiple political rants. Some of my friends warn other people, like Krakauer’s fellow clients warned him, not to get into political arguments with me or to ask me political questions, because I will argue my point and disagree with you for as long as possible. Rob Hall, another one of the climbers written about, gave me a special impact. He reminded me of my father. Like Rob Hall plans his

The Internet is one of the most widespread ways to exchange data, and a website called WikiLeaks has received a great amount of attention from the knowledge it releases. The details they give are known to be confidential and provide society with an inside view on what is really happening behind of the closed doors of the federal government. The site is based on the “belief that a more transparent government will bring better consequences for all, and that leaking information has an inherent tendency toward greater justice” (Singer 465). WikiLeaks gives its readers a way to honestly know all the significant facts and records that are purposefully kept away from

News are more than just facts and information, it is knowledge that affects a human’s life by helping them stay up-to-date. News have the influence to communicate and aid an individual's outcome on how to make decisions. With that being, in today’s society there are thousands of media outlets around the world. Despite that media plays a major role in one’s life, often times publishers revise the truth and intertwine the event which ultimately has a major impact on the perspective and opinions that people possess as they get manipulated by these news outlets.By examining the event of the September 11 attacks (9/11) from the perspective of “The Guardian” and “The Los Angeles Times”, one can determine the similarities, differences, and the “truth”

Critics of Edward Snowden label him a traitor and a coward. They condemn him for irreparably harming government security operations and setting of a worldwide chain of events that weakened the American position on the world stage. While America now has blight on its records due to the leaks, the topic that should be addressed is should the whistle-blower, the man who uncovered and exposed the questionable and wrong activities, be blamed or should those who allowed the illegal and immoral activities be held accountable for what they started. Edward Snowden had the justification and conviction to do the correct thing and present the incriminating evidence straight to the public. When one takes in consideration everything that Snowden has lost because of his decision, there was little gain for him to make the immoral activities public. Snowden’s crime is breaching the trust of his government contract to expose egregious monitoring by the government on the American public. In an interview conducted by the Washington Post, Snowden speaks out about his goal in releasing the files: “All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed,”

In early 2013 a man by the name of Edward Joseph Snowden began leaking classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents to media outlets, which in turn ended up in public ears. These documents, mainly involving intelligence Snowden acquired while working as an NSA contractor, are mostly related to global surveillance programs run by the NSA. This has raised multiple ethical issues ranging from national security, information privacy and the ethics behind whistleblowing in general. The reach and impact of these leaks have gone global and have put in question the very government that protects us as well as the extent of the public’s rights on privacy. Various foreign

Claimed by its founder to be a non-profit organization/website, Wikileaks was firstly launched in 2006. Some call it an open government group that enables public witnessing (Nayar, 2011; Rosewall & Warren, 2010), while others see it as a representation of a new type of “sovereignty in the global political and economy sphere” (Bodó, 2011, p. 3). The website uses the term “wiki” which was followed after Wikipedia due to its anonymous contributors and