Reflection of This Class

This course taught me that there was a huge community in the world that I had yet to tap into: the blogosphere. This realization was very humbling. Before this class I wrote blogs off as means to further one's self obsession, but it is obviously much more than that. I also found that writing is more of a conversation than a lecture. Theses two understandings will help my attitude towards writing become more positive and engaged. Now that I know that my writing is not simply done in order to fulfill an assignment, but to be a contributing piece of society.

Final Draft of Kramer Paper

Kramer’s Unfortunate Story

On November 20^th, 2006 the paparazzi site, TMZ posted a video of Michael Richards, most famously known as Kramer, the eccentric neighbor from the hit sitcom Seinfield. This video contained footage of Richards exploding at black audience members who were supposedly talking during his standup act. Outraged rants directed at audience members have happened before, but they have rarely involved diatribes like, “Shut up, 500 years we’d have you upside down with a f****ing fork up your ass!” to black audience members, exclaiming, “Throw his ass out. He’s a n*****!” This breakdown caught on a camera phone made a spark that eventually turned into a forest fire of a news story.

            The TMZ article did exactly what all other paparazzi articles do. It put the situation through a simple and audacious lens. The journalist reports:

Michael Richards exploded in anger as he performed at a famous L.A. comedy club last Friday, hurling racial epithets that left the crowd gasping, and TMZ has obtained exclusive video of the ugly incident.

These visceral words give the reader more exaggerated feelings towards the subject of the story. I usually think that news stories should be written with a wider scope, but Michael Richards unfortunately fit the description. For this reason TMZ let the video speak for itself, giving no commentary on the situation: only a brief synopsis of what happened.

            This video went viral in the pure sense of the word. The first YouTube video, released by TMZ, has been viewed over a million times. Because of this immediate popularity (rather infamy), there was no escape for Michael Richards. He was put under the intense heat of the media microscope. He accepted this fact and gave him self up for examination by going on the David Letterman Show to apologize. The apology began with a casual, talk show opening by Letterman: “Now this Michael Richards thing. Whoa…” . Then, after expressing his deep sadness for the situation, Jerry Seinfeld officially introduced Richards via satellite. Michael Richards then began to ramble about the regret and disbelief he felt. The crowd at first chuckled, probably not in complete assurance that this was not a joke. This cheeky late night show was obviously not the right setting to apologize for such a heinous moment. Nevertheless, David Letterman did rise to the occasion. He goes to a serious part of his personality that people rarely see, in which he asks sharp questions, getting to the meat of the issue. For example: “… Had the people doing the heckling or the people not paying attention, had they been uh white or Caucasian or uuuh any other race, what would’ve been the nature of your response then?” Although said in the stuttering, disjointed way talk show hosts like to speak, it was a direct question that attacked the basic racial issue revealed by the event. Letterman also tries to empathize with Michael Richards about the folly, graciously asking him if the rant was done as an attempt to diffuse the situation. If Richards was trying to clear his name with this appearance, he failed miserably. Michael Richards seemed honest in his apologies, but also unstable. The fire continued to grow.

            The New York Times then released an article two days later, musing at the debacle. The article by Virginia Hefferman is titled “Bewildered-Sounding Man and Bewildering Words”. This article has a critical eye of Richards but is also sympathetic about the apparent unbalanced state he was in. Hefferman remarks at the split personalities we see:

…he no longer looked furious and fired up. Instead he appeared ashen, like a transplant candidate or an arrested priest. In this state Mr. Richards explained, extenuated and mumbled.

This article stays mostly objective in its style. She makes sure the reader is aware that what Richards did was wrong, but she also reflects that Richards stayed real in his apology, pointing out that he was “winging it, without a damage-control team.” The article ends with a rambling quote by Richards: “It comes through! It fires out of me! Even now, in the passion, and the — and the — that’s here, as I — as I — confront myself.” The quote leaves a lasting image of a man out of control, yet wanting to face his problems. Ending with just a quote gives the reader a sense that the story has only begun.

            That same day, MSNBC released an article, “Richards says anger, not racism, sparked tirade”. The article was completely objective, merely describing the events that took place in the past two days. One interesting connection was made between Richards’ remarks and a recent incident with Mel Gibson. The journalist contemplates:

His explanation was reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s assertion that he wasn’t anti-Semitic after he let off a barrage of Jewish slurs during a traffic stop last summer: despite what came out of his mouth, that’s not what is inside him.

This strategy in which one brings up a related, previous story expresses interest in a possible pattern. This possibility of a pattern gives the story more credibility and forward motion.

            NPR kept the ball rolling with a story on the four days after the original video. The host of the program gives a short introduction, briefing the audience of the situation. Then, she hands the spotlight over to Jimmy Izrael, a columnist for the website AOL Black Voices. It is apparent that there are personal feelings of hurt from what Richards said. He opens up with,

Some words are not ready to be adopted into the popular lexicon. They contain just enough venom to alienate people and put the speaker in a world of hurt. When people decide to use them, better that they be professionals like comedians.

This opening line is opinionated, taking a stance against the overarching philosophy of Richards’s use of the N-word. The next sentence returns to the feeling of sympathy for the celebrity by acknowledging that he is in a “world of hurt”. From sympathy, Izrael attacks Richards with a mocking point, insisting that Richards actions make visible that he is not truly a professional comedian. The opinionated, sympathetic and satirical tone of these first three sentences set up the approach of the rest of article perfectly. Izrael then gives a possible explanation for some root cause in this racism:

Richards…hit a stride in his role as lovable, hipster-doofus Cosmo Kramer on NBC's ‘Seinfeld,’ affectionately called, the show about nothing by its fans, better known as the show without black people at my barbershop.

Izrael plants this seed in our psyches then moves on, letting the reader contemplate this overarching racial issue on their own time. This can be a very effective way to cause a news story to grow from one article. If the writer leaves unresolved ideas, he or she is allowing readers to fill in the holes with their own opinion. Izrael then begins to comment on and satirize the reactions to Richards’s follies:

I've been following the reaction in the media and it runs the gamet from free speech nicks(ph) applauding his forthrightness and taking the hecklers to pass to people that think Richards should never work again.

But what can we really do to him? We can't deport him. We can't sterilize them, cause he's already got kids. So what's the suitable penalty? We may never know… His career, such that it is, will survive this gaff because while it's no longer fashionable to be racist, we see time and time again that it's perfectly acceptable.

This passage employs a term Joseph Harris coins in his book, Rewriting: How To Do Things With Texts, “countering”. Countering can be defined as the rejection of others’ beliefs in order to make one’s own work stronger. Izrael is dismissing the acceptance that other people have exuded about this story in order to make the point that this issue is much bigger than the personal beliefs of a former sitcom star. He claims that this is part of a societal problem. Izrael finishes off the article by expressing a complete loss of hope for Richards’s true regret or good intent in the matter, reminding the reader that, “He has apologized but he's only sorry he was caught on tape.”

            LA Times published an article by Michael Shermer on the same day as the NPR story titled “He’s a racist. So are you. So am I.” In this article Michael Shermen takes a psychological perspective on the issue. He boldly claims, “Consciously and publicly, Richards is probably not a racist. But unconsciously and privately, he is. So am I. So are you.” Shermen wants to communicate to his audience that racism is something that lives in everyone’s personal subconscious. To support this belief he cites a study done at Harvard about subconscious racism:

The words and black and white faces appear on the screen one at a time, and you sort them into one of these categories: African American/Good or European American/Bad. Again you match the words with the concepts of good or bad, and faces with national origin. So the word "joy" would go into the first category and a white face would go into the second category. This sorting goes noticeably slower, but you might expect that because the combined categories are more cognitively complex.

Unfortunately, the final sorting task puts the lie to that rationalization. This time you sort the words and faces into the categories European American/Good or African American/Bad. Tellingly (and distressingly), this sorting process goes much faster than the previous one.

This increased speed in sorting the second section of the test means that it comes much easier to people to correlate European with Good and African American with Bad. Hermen is disgusted with this fact but does assure the reader that these shockingly true, subconscious habits were found to be “true for everyone”, even non-whites. Hermen asserts that this racist tendency is evolutionary, harbored by living in small, tight bands of hunter-gatherers. Hermen blames the incident on “the sin of all humanity” and ends up calling for people to accept Richards’s apology, even to “…thank him for having the courage to confess in public what far too many of us still harbor in private, often in our unconscious minds.”

            Unfortunately for Michael Richards, most people did the opposite of thanking him for what he did. Most of the country dismissed him as a symbol of underlying-American racism. There seemed to be no hope for Richards, but like always, time healed the wound. After the anger subsided, news of a return arose. On June 17^th, 2009 an article published by Reuters read “Fallen ‘Seinfeld’ star Richards ‘a new man’”. Roger Friedman, the writer of the article, reports:

Richards' flagging career ground to a halt in 2006 after he was captured on a cell phone camera delivering an alcohol-fueled racist tirade at some hecklers watching his routine at a Los Angeles comedy clubs. The master of physical comedy apologized profusely, and inadvertently drew studio-audience laughter while making a mea culpa on ‘Late Show with David Letterman’.

Terms like “captured”, “hecklers” and “alcohol-fueled” victimize Michael Richards, which could’ve only be done after time dulled the disdain felt by the American public. The writer even praises him as a “master of physical comedy”. It is evident that the goal of this article is to bring back a long-lost, positive light to Michael Richards. The article announces his return to TV, joining his fellow Seinfeld stars in a reunion on Larry David’s show, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”. Larry David is quoted in the article as calling Richards “a new man”. In this article, it seems as if Richards has been given a new chance.

            News stories are incredibly flexible. Because one person dictates them at a time, there are always holes to fill in, points to reaffirm and beliefs to dissent from. From the inception of this story on the amateur footage of a cell phone camera, our concept of Michael Richards went from out of control bigot to depressive sap to social commentator to victim at the hands of paparazzi. This story’s life serves as a perfect example of the endless possibilities in which people can interpret an event and even judge a person.

Works Cited:

""Kramer's" Racist Tirade -- Caught on Tape." Celebrity Gossip. TMZ, 20 Nov. 06. Web. 05 Mar. 2012. <http://www.tmz.com/2006/11/20/kramers-racist-tirade-caught-on-tape/>.

Hefferman, Virginia. "Bewildering-Sounding Man and Bewildering Words."Nytimes.com. The New York Times, 22 Nov. 06. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/arts/television/22heff.html?_r=1&ref=michaelrichards>.

"Today." TODAY.com. 22 Nov. 06. Web. <http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/15816126/ns/today-entertainment/t/richards-says-anger-not-racism-sparked-tirade/>.

Izrael, Jimmy. "Kramer Goes Wild." NPR. NPR, 24 Nov. 2006. Web. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6533679>.

Micheal, Shermer. "He's a Racist. So Are You. So Am I." Latimes.com. Los Angeles Times, 24 Nov. 2006. Web. <http://articles.latimes.com/2006/nov/24/opinion/oe-shermer24>.

Friedman, Roger. "Fallen Seinfeld Star Richards a New Man." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 17 June 2009. Web. <http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/17/us-richards-idUSTRE55G6HC20090617>.

Harris, Joseph. Rewriting: How to Do Things With Texts. Utah State University Press, Logan: 2006.

Kramer’s Apology (Full Video). (2006) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC26RI-Ria8

Rough Draft

Kramer’s Unfortunate Story

On November 20^th, 2006 the paparazzi site, TMZ posted a video of Michael Richards, most famously known as Kramer, the eccentric neighbor from the hit sitcom Seinfield. The video contained footage of Richards exploding at black audience members who were supposedly talking during his standup act. Outraged rants directed at audience members have happened before, but they have rarely involved yelling things like, “Shut up, 500 years we’d have you upside down with a f****ing fork up your ass!” to black audience members and exclaiming, “Throw his ass out. He’s a n*****!” This breakdown caught on a phone camera made a spark that eventually turned into a forest fire of a news story.

            The TMZ article did exactly what all other paparazzi articles do. It put the situation through a simple and audacious lens. The journalist reports:

“Michael Richards exploded in anger as he performed at a famous L.A. comedy club last Friday, hurling racial epithets that left the crowd gasping, and TMZ has obtained exclusive video of the ugly incident.”

These visceral words give the reader more exaggerated feelings towards the subject of the story. I usually think that news stories should be written with a wider scope, but Michael Richards unfortunately fit the description. For this reason TMZ let the video speak for itself, giving no commentary on the situation: only a brief synopsis of what happened.

            This video went viral in the pure sense of the word. The first YouTube video, released by TMZ, has been viewed over a million times. Because of this immediate popularity, there was no escape for Michael Richards. He was put under the intense heat of the media microscope. He accepted this fact and gave him self up for examination by going on the David Letterman Show to apologize. After a classic talk show segue, beginning with the casual, “Now this Michael Richards thing. Whoa…” Jerry Seinfeld introduces Richards via satellite. Michael Richards then begins to ramble about the regret and disbelief he felt. The crowd at first began to laugh, probably not in complete assurance that this was not a joke. This cheeky late night show was obviously not the right setting to apologize for such a heinous moment. Michael Richards did seem honest in his apologies, but also unstable. Although the setting was not right, David Letterman did rise to the occasion. He goes to a serious part of his personality that people rarely see, in which he asks sharp questions, getting to the meat of the issue. For example: “… Had the people doing the heckling or the people not paying attention, had they been uh white or Caucasian or uuuh any other race, what would’ve been the nature of your response then?” Although said in the stuttering, disjointed way talk show hosts like to speak, it was a direct question that attacked the basic racial issue revealed by the event. Letterman also tries to empathize with Michael Richards about the folly, graciously asking him if the rant was done as an attempt to diffuse the situation. If Richards was trying to clear his name with this appearance, he failed miserably. The fire continued to grow.

            The New York Times then released an article two days later, musing at the debacle. The article by Virginia Hefferman is titled “Bewildered-Sounding Man and Bewildering Words”. This article has a critical eye of Richards but is also sympathetic about the apparent unbalanced state he was in. Hefferman remarks at the split personalities we see:

“It helped that for the chastening on “The Late Show With David Letterman,” where he appeared via satellite to explain the murderous-sounding bigotry he had expressed onstage in Los Angeles on Friday night, he no longer looked furious and fired up. Instead he appeared ashen, like a transplant candidate or an arrested priest. In this state Mr. Richards explained, extenuated and mumbled.”

This article stays mostly objective in its style. She admits that what Richards did was wrong, but she also reflects that Richards stayed real in his apology, pointing out that he was “winging it, without a damage-control team.” The article ends with a quote by Richards: “It comes through! It fires out of me! Even now, in the passion, and the — and the — that’s here, as I — as I — confront myself.” The quote leaves a lasting image of a man out of control, yet wanting to face his problems. Ending with just a quote gives the reader a sense that the story has only begun.

            That same day, MSNBC released an article, “Richards says anger, not racism, sparked tirade”. The article was completely objective, merely describing the events that took place in the past two days. One interesting connection was made between Richards remarks and a recent incident with Mel Gibson. The journalist contemplates:

“His explanation was reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s assertion that he wasn’t anti-Semitic after he let off a barrage of Jewish slurs during a traffic stop last summer: despite what came out of his mouth, that’s not what is inside him.”

This strategy in which one brings up a related, previous story expresses interest in a possible pattern. This possibility of a pattern gives the story more credibility and forward motion.

            NPR performed a story on the four days after the original video. The host of the program gives a short introduction, briefing the audience of the situation. Then, she hands the spotlight over to Jimmy Izrael, a columnist for the website AOL Black Voices. It is apparent that there are personal feelings of hurt from what Richards said. He opens up with,

“Some words are not ready to be adopted into the popular lexicon. They contain just enough venom to alienate people and put the speaker in a world of hurt. When people decide to use them, better that they be professionals like comedians.”

This opening line is opinionated, taking a stance against the overarching philosophy of Richards’s use of the N-word. The next sentence returns to sympathy on the celebrity by acknowledging that he is in a “world of hurt”. From sympathy, Izrael attacks Richards with a mocking point, saying that Richards actions make visible that he is not truly a professional comedian. The opinionated, sympathetic and satirical tone of these first three sentences set up the approach of the rest of article perfectly. Izrael then gives a possible explanation for some root cause in this racism:

“Richards…hit a stride in his role as lovable, hipster-doofus Cosmo Kramer on NBC's ‘Seinfeld,’ affectionately called, the show about nothing by its fans, better known as the show without black people at my barber shop. But we all postulated about how anyone who could suspend belief long enough to imagine a New York without any people of color.”

Izrael plants this seed in our psyches then moves on, letting the reader contemplate the issue on their own time. This can be a very effective way to cause a news story to grow from one’s article. If the writer leaves unresolved ideas, he or she is allowing readers to fill in the holes with their own opinion. Izrael then begins to comment on and satirize the reactions to Richards’s follies:

“I've been following the reaction in the media and it runs the gamet from free speech nicks(ph) applauding his forthrightness and taking the hecklers to pass to people that think Richards should never work again.

But what can we really do to him? We can't deport him. We can't sterilize them, cause he's already got kids. So what's the suitable penalty? We may never know… His career, such that it is, will survive this gaff because while it's no longer fashionable to be racist, we see time and time again that it's perfectly acceptable.”

This passage employs a term Joseph Harris coins in his book, Rewriting: How To Do Things With Texts, “countering”. Countering can be defined as the rejection of others’ beliefs in order to make one’s own work stronger. Izrael is dismissing the acceptance that other people have exuded about this story in order to make the point that this issue is much bigger than the personal beliefs of a former sitcom star. He claims that this is part of a societal problem. Izrael finishes off the article by expressing a complete loss of hope for Richards’s true regret or good intent in the matter, reminding the reader that, “He has apologized but he's only sorry he was caught on tape.”

            LA Times published an article by Michael Shermer on the same day as the NPR story titled “He’s a racist. So are you. So am I.” In this article Michael Shermen takes a psychological perspective on the issue. He boldly claims, “Consciously and publicly, Richards is probably not a racist. But unconsciously and privately, he is. So am I. So are you.” Shermen wants to communicate to his audience that racism is something that lives in everyone’s personal subconscious. To support this belief he cites a study done at Harvard about subconscious racism:

“The words and black and white faces appear on the screen one at a time, and you sort them into one of these categories: African American/Good or European American/Bad. Again you match the words with the concepts of good or bad, and faces with national origin. So the word "joy" would go into the first category and a white face would go into the second category. This sorting goes noticeably slower, but you might expect that because the combined categories are more cognitively complex.

Unfortunately, the final sorting task puts the lie to that rationalization. This time you sort the words and faces into the categories European American/Good or African American/Bad. Tellingly (and distressingly), this sorting process goes much faster than the previous one.”

This increased speed in sorting the second section of the test means that it comes much easier to people to correlate European with Good and African American with Bad. Hermen is disgusted with this fact but does assure the reader that these shockingly true, subconscious habits were found to be “true for everyone”, even non-whites. Hermen asserts that this racist tendency is evolutionary, harbored by living in small, tight bands of hunter-gatherers:

“This natural tendency to sort people into Within-Group/Good and Between-Group/Bad is shaped by culture, so that all Americans (including even those whose ancestry is African) implicitly inculcate the cultural association, which includes additional prejudices.”

Hermen blames the incident on “the sin of all humanity” and ends up calling for people to accept Richards’s apology, even to “…thank him for having the courage to confess in public what far too many of us still harbor in private, often in our unconscious minds.”

            Unfortunately for Michael Richards, most people did the opposite of thanking him for what he did. Most of the country dismissed him as a symbol of racism. There seemed to be no hope for Richards, but like usual, time healed the wound. After the craze subsided, news of a return arose. On June 17^th, 2009 an article published by Reuters read “Fallen ‘Seinfeld’ star Richards ‘a new man’”. Roger Friedman, the writer of the article, reports:

“Richards' flagging career ground to a halt in 2006 after he was captured on a cell phone camera delivering an alcohol-fueled racist tirade at some hecklers watching his routine at a Los Angeles comedy clubs. The master of physical comedy apologized profusely, and inadvertently drew studio-audience laughter while making a mea culpa on ‘Late Show with David Letterman’.”

Terms like “captured” and “alcohol-fueled” victimize Michael Richards, which could’ve only be done after time dulled the disdain felt by the American public. The writer even praises him as a “master of physical comedy”. It is evident that the goal of this article is to bring a long-lost, positive light to Michael Richards. The article announces his return to TV, joining his fellow Seinfeld stars in a reunion on Larry David’s show, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”. Larry David is quoted in the article as calling Richards “a new man”. In this article, it seems as if Richards has been given a new chance.

            News stories are incredibly flexible. Because they are dictated by one person at a time, there are always holes to fill in, points to reaffirm and beliefs to dissent from. From the inception of this story on the amateur footage of a cell phone camera, our concept of Michael Richards went from out of control bigot to depressive sap to social commentator to victim at the hands of paparazzi. This story’s life serves as a perfect example of the endless possibilities in which people can interpret an event and even judge a person.

           

Revisionizationing

            I’d like to challenge J-Child’s definition of the blog. His opening, in which he sarcastically declares that the blog is the answer to all his readers’ problems, I don’t think, should be so sarcastic. In my opinion, the blog truly can be the answer to all the reader’s problems if they decide that it can be. J-Child then says that the reason the blog does not seem to need to be taken seriously is because it was so easy to make. I’d like to say that the easiness of a task can be a sign of its importance. Some of the most natural things in life are the most pertinent. One good example of this occurrence is the simple task of eating. We don’t try to eat: we just eat. Eating isn’t less important because of this effortless. It brings us life and because it brings us life, it has to be easy.

J Child then makes the comparison between a blog and a “surf kneeling below royalty”. I dissent from this metaphor by saying that actually blogs have now become such a simple and relevant means of communication that they are the royalty. The “accessibility and roughness of a blog” is only present because blog writers feel it necessary to dictate their philosophies to their surfs in a way that is relatable. I will give it to J-Child that he at least sees these characteristics as valuable, but his degradation of the blog’s rank is incredibly limiting in regards to this new medium’s great possibilities.

            I chose to counter my first blog because I figured that I was still easing into the art of blog writing, therefore, there must be concepts to challenge. It was a very effective way to understand what I wrote in a deeper way. Even though I was disagreeing with myself, I felt like I was extending my thoughts, connecting them to a greater understanding.

Taking An Approoooooooooaaaaaaaaaach

            Taking an approach is trying to understand the path a different writer takes and then applying that path to your own work. It can also be defined as being true to one’s own manner of writing. Harris expresses the first definition through an effective metaphor, comparing taking an approach to playing a cover of a song. When playing a cover of a tune it is important to understand the intention of the previous artist, but it is also important to not merely regurgitate what you have heard. You take the model that the musicians made and reshape it. This reshaping should not be done at the expense of the other song’s meaning; it should be done in a way that brings a new light to the previous work. Although I found Harris’s multiple aspects of taking an approach hard to solidify, I did manage to take out the concept of “reflection”. In order to use one’s method to its fullest potential, the writer must turn the method in on its self. Through this process of reflection, the approach can take on greater clarity.

            The blog I am following does not explicitly take its approach from other writers, but it definitely has a life of its own. Nicholas Payton’s approach is very confrontational and confident. He uses very direct, simple language. His sentences at many times utilize relatable and profane phrases. This is effective, because it makes the reader feel like something very close to home is being put at stake. His style also has its limits. At many times I have worry that his opinionated style sacrifices a greater objectivity. It seems like he could benefit from a calmer approach. 

Countering

Harris defines countering as the challenging of another piece in order to bring new revelations to your own written work. This writing tool can be a great way to expand on ideas, but Harris a makes a point that countering should be done in a civil way. It should not be done just to bring down the point that the other writer is trying to make. Countering should be done in order to bring to light what wasn’t brought to light before. Although countering might seem negative, it should be done in a positive way. He noted three different methods that enable positive countering: arguing the other side, uncovering values and dissenting. Arguing the other side is supporting the concept that the countered writer is dismissing. Uncovering values consists of analyzing the unanalyzed: filling the holes the writer leaves. Dissenting is showing the limits of an agreed upon idea in the discussion: calling what is deemed right as wrong.

Nicholas Payton utilizes countering very much and very affectively. One great example is a post in which he interviews a renowned bassist, Christian Mcbride. Christian Mcbride claims that the term “jazz” is just a term and therefore does not have to be abandoned. “It’s just a phrase that’s been created for identification,“ he says. Nicholas does not agree. Nicholas brings up the point that words are very important and have a lot of power. Therefore, the term jazz should be changed because it holds racist implications. Nicholas mostly utilizes “uncovering values” in order to make his point. For example, Christian Mcbride says that the name that people give Black people changes every generation so there is no use in trying to give power to one word. Nicholas sees this point and argues that words like the n-word are incredibly powerful and should be changed because they are outdated and offensive. By bringing the n-word up, Payton analyzes further what Mcbride wrote off as just a word. YEAH!

here's the post: http://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/an-open-conversation-with-christian-mcbride-by-nicholas-payton/

here's some of Nicholas Payton's musac: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnTHyPFg-eg

Forwarding

Harris's definition of "forwarding" is the act of a writer taking another person's terms, phrases or concepts and applying them to his or her piece. The writer does this forwarding, not only to make his or her work stronger, but also to continue the ever-developing conversation. He also says that this conversation is quite "asymmetrical”. The conversation that he is describing can be appropriately compared to an interview for an audience to then interpret or a game of telephone. Each person in academic writing is passing on the conversation to the next willing person. Harris cites four important aspects of this forwarding: Illustrating, Authorizing, Borrowing, and Extending. Illustrating is trying to encompass the feeling of another piece. Authorizing is drawing from another person's expertise and authority in the field you are discussing. Borrowing is taking another work's term or phrase and applying to your writing. Extending seems to go hand in hand with borrowing: it is the writer's extension he or she places on the term he or she borrowed. In other words extending is the act of bringing a new light to a word already utilized by another writer. 

Nicholas Payton, the author of the blog I am following, utilizes forwarding in the post, “#BAM Is For People Of All Races, Sexes, Cultures And Colors”. In this post, he is reiterating his point that the term “jazz” is dead and should not be used anymore to describe music after the 1950s. He opens up with a brief paragraph dismissing “the j-word” as a “racist moniker”. After this scolding, he puts forth several videos of interviews with renowned “jazz” artists (excuse my French) denouncing the very term that people think defines them. After this stream of interviews, he says, “If you don’t [accept] my word for it, please listen to my elders.” This type of forwarding involved all of the four different aspects, but probably the most apparent one is “authorizing”. GREAT JOB NICHOLAS!

 here's the post: http://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/bam-is-for-people-of-all-races-sexes-cultures-and-colors/

The Dysfunctional Yet Productive Relationship Between News and Blogs

Both the New York Times and blogs are key parts of the conversation that is currently happening. The role New York Times serves is to be the big brother, the Word. An organization such as NY Times tends to feel more objective in their opinion. The blog is the little brother saying, “Yeah you’re right!” or “No, you’re a stinky poopface!” Blogs respond to the authoritative stance that news sources push on them. Both news and blogs are incredibly necessary in this new ecology of the press. Authority means nothing unless there is something or someone to preach to and every pissed off kid needs a parent to be mad at. Blogs have two crossing paths to take: they can either be the supporter or the protester. The blog I am following usually stays on the fringe, stretching what our minds think the ways are definitive. I find this path to be a very exciting part of the conversation. If a conversation had no room for further understanding they would not yield much deep communication. As this little brother, the blog, grows up, the lines between authority and follower are becoming increasingly grayer. News sources are beginning to receive a lot of their information from the blogs they used to be preaching to. Who knows? Maybe in some years the congregation will become the preacher and the preacher, the sinner.

New Catalysts

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/04/14/the-press-becomes-the-press-sphere/

I loved what Jarvis had to say about where the news environment is going. He declared that instead of the news moving in a linear direction, it moves in an ever-developing circle. To me, that is a much more truthful way to experience the world.  The human creation of a definitive beginning and end only skews the objective truth of the matter. What did benefit from the old way of one organization giving one story to one reader and it ending there was the sense of confidence and trust we could have in the information we were given. This assurance we had seemingly came from necessity, because we had no choice other than to fully take in this one sided point of view. Nowadays, one story is only one piece of a much bigger system. Therefore, we, meaning the audience, don’t have as much of an intimate connection with the article we are reading as much as we have a connection to the way we fit into this event. When given many varying and contradicting point of views, we can either trust it all as telling segments of one circle or simply trust what we take from the information (or both…). I can see how this new trend can be frightening to journalists and editors. They are losing the control they used to think of as consistent luxury in the news business. But I would like to put them at ease. Their stories are not the be-all and end-all of worldly news. Rather, stories by “official” news organization act as catalysts, pushing along this conversation we call the press-sphere.

About My Blog

Purpose: to redefine our conceptions of music and racial issues
Audience: People familiar with Jazz and the culture that surrounds it
Author: Nicholas Payton: modern musician, African American

The author's aim is to challenge American culture (particularly Jazz and racial tensions). His materials are often musician's opinion's through interviews, historical documents, videos, pictures, journalistic articles.
His method is posting these materials and then responding to them by usually disagreeing with them. Key words: J***, #BAM

The Blog I Will Follow

 I will be following a blog by the acclaimed trumpeter, Nicholas Payton. I chose it because it is controversial and open minded. It will also be interesting to read a blog that brings up racial issues from the standpoint of an African-American man. http://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/

New York Times and Empathy

New York Times has been mostly a joy to read. When I say joy, I do not mean the kind one gets from zooming down a hill on a bike, rather the kind deeper joy that comes from riding slowly through nature, musing at the intricacies of surrounding nature. New York Times definitely seems to lean towards a human-interest focus, contrasting the business focus of competing news organization. I believe that focusing on the welfare of human gets to the core of news. Business and political issues are still relevant. I just have a problem with journalists treating corporations and politicians like they are above the sanctity of raw human life. But I digress in the direction of this human’s relationship with the New York Times. I have a warm place in my heart for picking up a tangible newspaper, folding it up in awkward ways that only a news newbie could do and sipping on a cup of tea. On this paper I try to resist only reading the articles that I feel particularly attracted to. I feel that news is about humbling myself. As I read all these articles about the failings of people, I realize that, as intimate companion of the human race, I have a long way to go before I can deem myself a peaceful person. New York Times’ empathetic view of the world serves as a great way to start off the day. It is a call to action for us lazy people, comfortably sipping on our tea.

News On the Internet? For Breakfast?

            Well, how do you think my classmates got the news? THE INTERNET! Sites like Yahoo, Google News, New York Times, CNN, StumbleUpon, and not surprisingly Facebook came up. Mostly people decided to read articles based on if the headline looked interesting or not. One could say this is dangerous. A pessimist would say that my classmates might get interesting mixed up with entertaining at times, but I want to think positive.  It actually seems as if we are not becoming increasingly subjective pertaining to news awareness, but rather the internet is yielding a greater opportunity to be objectively opinioned (if that’s even possible). One great example of the more rounded view that the internet gives us is the news searching ability of StumbleUpon. On this site, the visitor can “stumble” through multiple news articles of varying viewpoints. So, instead of reading mass amount of articles by one organization that follows one decree, we are enabled to broaden our perspective through the varying ideas of others. Even Facebook, which celebrates subjectivity and individualism is a haven for the development of an open mind. My classmates reminisced on their use of Facebook statuses to learn about the events and issues in the world. Without the social networks we have now, there was a minimal opportunity for a news savvy person to express their beliefs on the matters they have been exposed to. Next to one status  could stand a completely conflicting concept on the current events. And that, my friends, is the internet at its best: there are so many ideas living in one source that contrast in such definitive ways, the only choice the audience has is to see these ideas as different puzzle pieces fitting together to make one bigger picture.

and this is what I listened to when writing this blog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6F-36G9avk&feature=related

Final Draft of Essay

            I have tailored this essay to fellow college students of my generation. I did this by not focusing on describing the situation, but focusing on appreciating and accepting our current condition of writing and reading as young people in this age of technology.

A New Dawn in the Age of Words and Technology

We have come a long way since the age of paper and pencil. Writing used to be done by hand, from the imperfect, yet personal tools we called pens or pencils. In the seemingly far past, paper and pencil were not only mediums to expel one’s ideas, but an art that one perfected. The art of script was something that brought a humane beauty to writing, but also made it something that could only be done by the masters of scripting. Technology has globalized reading and writing, making the task of creating a word merely pressing a button. This new, effortless medium has allowed anybody to spit out his or her deepest thoughts in a matter of seconds. Reading used to be only affordable to the aristocrats of society. Books were not mass-produced. A book would be written one by one and usually the audience would be limited to whoever was lucky enough to live in the region of the book’s origin. Now, we have Google. As you know, pretty much any book worth reading can be read through a quick purchase to Amazon.com and shipped in a matter of days. As a lover of writing and reading, I will use this essay to express a deep appreciation for the good and bad that has come from the globalization, digitalization, affordability, accessibility, efficiency and overall effortlessness of modern day writing and reading.

The first assignment of my writing class was to create a blog, a completely new writing invention due to technological leaps. As a nice timeout from YouTube and Facebook, I jumped on Blogger.com and whipped up a blog in a matter of minutes. “This blog has been created and is now the answer to all my reader’s problems!” is what the sarcastic part of my mind wanted to say. It was too easy; easy in such a casual way that I felt as if I was jipping my future readers. The creation of a medium that gives the world my emotions and thoughts should be harder. Right? Jewish people, for instance, take several years to prepare one Torah. One congregation populated by no more than 200 people will purchase this holy book. My blog is open to, to an extent, any age, nationality, gender, or religion and it took me less time to start my blog than it takes to scribe at most, half a page of the Jewish people’s connection with God. At first this incongruity annoyed me, but then I realized that the blog’s beauty comes from its casual and unassuming nature. Whereas sometimes bringing to life a means of communication can be a ceremony that puts the medium on an unnecessary pedestal, a blog is the kind of communication that does not come from a pedestal or higher power. The blog comes from the surf kneeling below royalty.

Although the idea of a blog can be easily romanticized, it also has its faults. The accessibility and roughness of a blog gives it its charm, but this humane imperfection could make the reader feel that the writer is unworthy of deep interpretation. People want to listen to authority. The Milgram Experiment proved this to be true. In the experiment, the participant was told to deliver shocks to another participant (which was actually a trained actor) in the next room if he or she failed to learn a sequence of words. The participant would hear screams of pain from the actor after delivering the shocks. Participants asked to stop the experiment after hearing these cries, but the experimenter would prod them to keep shocking (Cherry). The results of the experiment were shocking (no pun intended). 65 percent of the participants finished the experiment by delivering what they believed to be a 450-volt shock to the other participant. The reason these ordinary citizens felt right delivering fatal shocks to a stranger was due to the authority that the experimenter exuded (Cherry). People’s willingness to obey authority can outweigh anything. I believe the antithesis may also be true. A blog, created in a couple of minutes, with each article being roughly jotted down and the writer not even belonging to a credible organization can be at serious risk of the unimpressed audience reading shallowly and lazily.

 The blog’s roughness is not its only possible risk. The shear number of blogs could also lead to negative consequences. A study composed in 2010 found that there were about 152 million blogs in existence (Pingdom). This daunting mass of writers is amazing and shows that many people want to share their ideas, but this popularity of the blog can also be its downfall. It is difficult to think of each web source as special when there are just so many. It’s like walking around a city and seeing five “World’s Best Coffee” signs. With so many people saying, “Look over here! No, wait, THIS is important!” how am I supposed to truly commit to one at a time? I sympathize with the worries brought up in an article titled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr. In the article, Carr talks about the dangers of the Internet’s blistering efficiency and vastness. He brings up the point that as the Internet becomes more and more efficient, its users may become so “efficient” that they lose human depth. Carr says that nowadays, he has trouble reading one piece for a long period of time because there is so much to read. I have had that same problem for as long as I can remember. I have always had trouble reading something on the Internet that is more than two paragraphs and it is for that exact reason: There is just so much to know at my fingertips, I am always tempted to move on to the next source.

             If I give in to this tendency to constantly move on to the next source, shallowness may take over. If my brain is always seeking a new stimulus then it seems only logical that I will go to the next, most immediately enjoyable thing. I do believe that education and cultural endeavors yield a more profound, lasting sense of happiness, but when a constant stream of shallowness is given to us, it seems to be dangerously comfortable to live in a constant state of moving from one visceral reaction to the next. A perfect example of this sampler of ideas that we are thrown into is the experience of highway advertisement. As I speed between the billboards’ blur of smiling faces and phone numbers, all I get is short shallow responses that have no true middle or end.

The other mental threat that is brought up by this highway billboard analogy is the fact that any person, of any intellectual status, can interpret a happy picture. Because of this universality of the picture, pictures seem to be taking priority over words. As technology advances, movies make less money from profound scripts and more money from big explosions that give the audience that immediate adrenaline rush. This rush is invigorating, but remember, it is equally fleeting. As this feeling of shallow happiness leaves us, the vicious cycle begins: we want more, now. And the Internet gives it to us. Stumbleupon.com is a perfect example of the aimless gluttony of web surfing. Once we’re done with one page, we can simply press the stumble button and the endless stream continues. With a button as taunting as this, I can’t see the average web surfer having an easy time reading a long article (at least without pictures).

Although the depth of literacy may be in danger, reading and writing’s relevancy is not threatened. Andrea Lundsford, a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford conducted a study of Stanford college students’ writing habits. It revealed that 38 percent of their writing was actually done out of class (Thompson), which actually makes perfect sense. With the immense social relevancy of texting, “tweeting”, and “facebook-ing”, writing has become an incredibly important part of society. Therefore, the fear that people feel about writing’s new developments can’t be about its dearth. The uneasiness might be simply due to the change in what we call writing. Writing used to be something official, done as a voice of authority. Now, thanks to technology’s new social developments, it also serves as a way to have a casual conversation.

This relaxed attitude might sit wrong with some people, but I don’t see a problem with this new role writing fills. If writing is becoming shallower due to its casualness, we should not blame the act of writing or even the new technological tools we have, we need to put more blame on the users of these tools. For example, if a construction worker is hammering a nail and accidentally hit’s his or her thumb, he does not rationally blame the hammer or nail. He or she will put the responsibility of the folly on his or herself, remembering later to be more careful. Self-responsibility is the key to wisdom. The “problems” brought by the Internet were created by our innate intelligence surpassing our innate wisdom, intelligence being the beautiful instrument we are given and wisdom being our ability to make beautiful music with that instrument. We have created a system that has a more efficient way of connecting dots than our own brain. There are so many connections to be made that we sometimes don’t know how to navigate or interpret this complex path in a way that actually benefits our own sense of wholeness. We run the risk of becoming lost, when actually the path is right in front of us. I do sympathize with Carr’s skepticism about this new daunting instrument, but I have hope for human’s universal ability to be wise. Words are only as beautiful as we write them and if we are wise enough, no amount of confusing technology can rob us of that.

Remember, even the oldest people are still in the honeymoon phase of technological knowledge. We have time to learn if we choose to.

Works Cited:

"Internet 2010 in Numbers | Royal Pingdom." Pingdom Web Site Monitoring Blog - Everything about Uptime, Downtime, Servers, Internet and Technology. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/01/12/internet-2010-in-numbers/>.

Cherry, Kendra. "Milgram Experiment - The Milgram Obedience Experiment."Psychology - Complete Guide to Psychology for Students, Educators & Enthusiasts. About. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgram.htm>.

Thompson, Clive. "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy." Wired.com. Wired, 24 Aug. 09. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_thompson>.

Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid? - Magazine - The Atlantic." The Atlantic — News and Analysis on Politics, Business, Culture, Technology, National, International, and Life – TheAtlantic.com. The Atlantic. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/>.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7__No9owGk

How and Why I Get My News?

            I mostly get my news from sites like NPR and New York Times. Both of these organizations I feel, are very focused on the welfare of people instead of businesses. I also like to read a newspaper over breakfast. I feel that a great, raw way of learning news is from people. When people talk about the news, you can see that these issues are tangibly effecting the way people live, just by the emotions that they convey when talking about the current events. John Stewart's Daily Show is also a news source I love. It tells the news while also making fun of it, which I think is needed in news. News can be mostly about the failings of people, unless your reading about the arts or science sections and I see comedy as a way to learn from people's follies. Therefore, I like to read the news from a empathetic standpoint. In other words, I like to keep in mind that issues are not matters of merely right and wrong, but are simply facets of our limited, human life to stay connected with.

            I get my news through any medium available really. I wish I could have a more structured way of finding things to use in conversations in order to make myself feel smarter but I just can’t commit to one source. If I did that I’d have to commit to one opinion and I just can’t do that. If I read New York Times, all my racist, rich, tea party friends would hate me and if I watched Fox News than all my flakey, poor, commi friends would hate me. So I just get my news wherever I’m at. I listen intently to my friends who decided to outcast themselves from half of the voting population by committing to one news source. I will immerse myself in what they are saying, trying to use as objective as a mind as possible (subjectivity just pisses people off). Maybe sometimes I’ll commit to one news source, which of course leans towards the lefties, but that’s just because they’re popular right now.  John Stewart is like, one of the most popular shows on Comedy Central. I know that’s like saying, I think the Wild Card team is the best because they got into the playoffs, but I feel like it’s cool to be liberal right now, with Osama and everything. I’ll watch a John Stewart episode and then I’ll go to parties and say things like, “Yeah, Newt’s real racist” and everybody else says, “Yeah he really he is!” and then I feel cool…