How the World Fair Changed America

The world fair in Chicago that was held in 1893 changed America in many ways. The influence of the Exposition extended beyond the confines of the World's Fairs. Trends which originated in Chicago in 1893 and many of the ideas advanced there have shaped the very landscape of modern America. Its legacy is wide-ranging, from movements in popular and high culture to changes in the nation's power structure and the lasting influence of commerce and technology. The fair brought new culture to America. It opened up a more diverse setting in America, and shaped what America has become today. This association of fun with consumption was an unintended but pleasant consequence for the Fair's management. They originally intended to increase American pride during times of trouble by celebrating American goods--which would, in turn, increase Americans' confidence in the business system. The Fair helped change Americans' reactions to technology. It became the vehicle for the hopes and dreams of Americans, as they saw in it a reflection of their own progressive nature and bright future. Many new inventions were started at the world fair, including Cracker Jacks,chocolate bars, pay toilets, zippers, beef bouillon, and of course the Ferris wheel. Probably the most long-lasting innovation was electricity. Outside of that, the idea for amusement parks was undoubtedly born here (Walt Disney's dad worked at the fair). This Fair was a tribute to American architecture and engineering, as well as the ethic of hard work and perseverance--they did build this in Chicago...on the edge of a lake...in part during winter. No one thought they could top the previous World's Fair in Paris, but they did. Many figures involved with the fair affected it and were critically influenced by it. Architects including, Frank Lloyd Wright, Burham and Root, and all of the other architects in charge of the architecture and amazingly significant displays of technology at the Chicago World's Fair. Those influenced directly by the fair were acts such of Buffalo Bill Cody, Thomas Edison, Susan B. Anthony, all of these people were influenced by the fair in ways that made their ideals available to the public. This Fair allowed them to become well known and popular. Not only were the Fair's acts influenced but also citizens and tourists that visited the fair. These people, first hand, saw the attractions, bought the goods, and saw, right before their eyes, America change. It was shocking, real, and irreversible. Right at their fingertips; these tourists could see new and unique inventions and gained incredible want for new products, gaining the fair proceeds and stimulating the American economy. The Fair was notable not only for what it included, but also for what it excluded. Contemporary assumptions about race and ethnicity were given apparent scientific credibility at World’s Fair exhibits which reinforced society’s prejudice. The racist assumptions of the day were reflected at the 1893 fair and the exposition’s vision of the future foresaw no enlightened behavior on behalf of society. Fortunately, America eventually rejected this prejudiced view of society and the turn-of-the-century fairs look more like time capsules of the past rather than vanguards of the future.

Satire in Modern Society

Satire is not only common in essays, but is also used a lot in various forms of media. It is very frequent in movies, advertisement, the internet and on television. Through satire, a person is able to make fun of a serious problem to bring out the seriousness of it. Satire also makes a silly problem appear to silly to all. Satire is the use of sarcasm, or irony to scorn of deride a particular subject.

Satire is very common in various forms of writing. Satirists use this form of writing to bring out the stupidity in many different subjects. This form can also enhance a serious subject. For example in the essay, “A Modest Proposal,” it suggests that the people of Ireland eat babies in order to stop poverty and stop the overpopulation. The author makes the idea plausible by using a serious tone and facts that make the suggestion seem like one that would work. This essay is a clear example of satire in modern society.

“The Onion” is also a satirical piece of writing. “The Onion” is a newspaper that has a sole purpose to mock and make a joke out of popular subjects in society. The newspaper can take a simple subject and show all the flaws in it. This newspaper also takes a certain subject or person and makes a completely new situation out of it.Important and news worthy events are riddle with unusual humorous writing style-the Onion drips with sarcasm in every of its report. The stories are not for the faint heart. No wonder they state it on their website that the newspaper is not intended for people under 18years old...you have to be mature enough to digest the content right. As Cuthbert Zweibel, VP of Client Relations of The Onion explained in his PR release: “… please keep in mind that the Onion is not like other newspapers. We do not bow to ignorant and self-righteous notions of censorship. We don't knuckle under to pressure from the community unless it is sufficiently profitable. In short, we refuse to be manipulated, and we absolutely refuse to be stupid. There is also an excellent chance we harbor intense hatred for our readers.”The Onion newspaper is “America’s finest news source”. With 2,251,643 followers on Twitter, you have no argument about how much people actually read it. It is a newspaper for the sad eyes. When feeling depressed by CNN news burst and the almost non-stop trickles of bad news on the normal media, pick up something unusual- read a copy of the Onion newspaper and celebrate the Press Freedom in the US. But remember, you are not to fall for the stories hook, line and sinker. But allow them crack you up. As you flip from page to page, you might find tears welling up your eyes because of the ridiculousness of the stories. Like a cut onion, it will bring tears to your eyes.

There is a great Reddit thread on The Onion’s migration from Drupal to Django. The Onion was one of the companies that I interviewed for the Drupal for Publishers report. One of the things I mention in the report is that The Onion was running on an early version (4.7) of Drupal. The Onion was one of the first high traffic sites to adopt Drupal and the team had to hack the Drupal core to achieve the scalability that they needed. While versions 5 and 6 of Drupal made substantial performance improvements, The Onion’s version was too far forked to cleanly upgrade.

Still, The Onion benefited greatly from using Drupal. They were able to minimize up-front costs by leveraging Drupal’s native functionality and adapt the solution as their needs changed. Scalability was a challenge but it was a manageable one. Even though forking the code base was not ideal, it was a better alternative than running into a brick wall and having to migrate under duress. The Drupal community also benefited from the exposure and learning that came from The Onion using Drupal. Everybody won &mdash how often can you say that?

I can understand the choice of Django 1.1 (current) over a hacked version of Drupal 4.7. Having built sites in both Drupal and Django, I can also see the appeal of using a Django over Drupal 6.16 (current). Django is a more programming-oriented framework and The Onion has programmers. Django is designed to be as straightforward and “Pythonic” as possible. Drupal tries to make it possible to get things done without writing any code at all; and if you can avoid writing code in Drupal, you should. As a programming framework, Drupal has more indirection and asserts more control over the developer. The Onion’s staff of programmers clearly appreciate the programmatic control that Django affords and they are quite happy with their decision.

Satire is not only common in essays, but is also used a lot in various forms of media. It is very frequent in movies, advertisement, the internet and on television. Through satire, a person is able to make fun of a serious problem to bring out the seriousness of it. Satire also makes a silly problem appear to silly to all. Satire is the use of sarcasm, or irony to scorn of deride a particular subject.

Satire is very common in various forms of writing. Satirists use this form of writing to bring out the stupidity in many different subjects. This form can also enhance a serious subject. For example in the essay, “A Modest Proposal,” it suggests that the people of Ireland eat babies in order to stop poverty and stop the overpopulation. The author makes the idea plausible by using a serious tone and facts that make the suggestion seem like one that would work. This essay is a clear example of satire in modern society.

In conclusion, the use of satire in modern society has increased more and more in the past few years. To express the satire in a persons essay, they will use various tools such as tone and diction. Satire can be good or bad depending on the subject it covers and how effective it is.

Heroes

In the novel “The Sun Also Rises” Hemingway defines a code of ethics about heroism, and also expresses the theme of male insecurity. The character Romero seems to not have any of these problems, he has his life figured out and he has his morals and values in check. The character Romero portrays these characteristics through everything that he does. Romero is set in the book to be a character of contrast to Jake and his friends. In a world where drinking is the new fashion, Romero does not drink. He puts himself into his bull fighting in order to carry himself high with his head up and to stay confident in himself. Romero is a symbol of strength and honesty. Romero not only attracts people who already love bull fighting, but also people who are new to the sport. Jake and his friends never seem to show a meaning in their life, or even a purpose for their being. Romero proves himself through bull fighting, and lives his life out through the confidence and pride he gets from the sport. Romero is a character of true masculinity in a world that seems to be searching for their own masculinity. Romero puts out the vibe that he knows who he is and he knows what he wants. Romero is really in contrast with Jake because Jake really struggles with finding who he is. Jake is the opposite of what one would say is a hero because he never really tells anyone his feelings and he just goes with what everyone else wants. If Jake were to have more confidence, and go after what he wants, he could be seen as a hero, like Romero is. Romero also shows a major contrast of Mike Campbell, the man is supposed to marry Brett. They share the common interest of Brett because they both fall in love with her, but Mike is engaged to her. They are very different in the fact that Mike is always drunk and bankrupt, and he is also very rough. Since Romero does not drink, he is able to keep his poise and not have the anger and sloppiness that is often seen when MIke is drunk. Since drinking is a way for Jake and his friends to escape the problems of their everyday life, they often were just putting their problems off, not necessarily escaping them. In contrast to all of them, Romero is able to keep control so that the need to drink is not necessary. Romero is seen as a hero because he is strong, honest and is pure. 

Heroes have changed throughout time and as a person gets older. One minute it could the famous singer, the next it could be that person who saved a life in a hospital. No matter what type of hero one has, they always seem to have the same characteristics. Confidence, pride, honesty and strength always seems to be the signs of a hero. The changes that have happened since the setting of “The Sun Also Rises” have changed, many of the morals, values and social situations have remained the same. The way a hero is categorized has been nearly the same since people can remember. Typically a person like Romero who is seen as a hero because of the way they carry themselves and the way they treat life. Many people look at big sports stars as heroes, but because many sports stars now have poor habits, many people look up to bad influences. Sports stars in the past held their head high, were honest and played fair games. They were never found in scandals much like the ones you see big sports stars are in today. Although the view of what kind of people are modern day heroes and what kind of people were heroes in the past, they all seem to have masculine attitude and seem to be very honest and strong.

Blog Two: Ivan Turgenev on Capital Punishment

Ivan Turgenev wrote many great essays on capital punishment and the cruelness in society. "The Execution of Tropmann" is one of these types of writings. Turgenev found his inspiration for his pieces from watching his mother be cruel to the people she was surrounded with. Through the diction that Turgenev uses, he is able to express the viciousness and humility that is brought about from capital punishment. Turgenev uses the narrator to show more of a one sided argument about the unjustness of execution and other forms of punishment during that time.

By explaining the setting of the story, by using words such as "mournful expression" and "cold sweat." He is able to put a dreary tone to the start of the passage. By the end of the passage, words such as “unnecessary” and “senseless barbarism” shows a more angry tone. By starting with a more sad tone, he is able to show that an eye for an eye government is not justice. 

Turgenev strongly feels  that capital punishment is wrong. That by having a public execution, is humiliating and that killing a human being after they had killed someone is not justice, it is hypocrisy. Turgenev’s argument was very strong in the ways that he thought that the punishment methods were wrong. Turgenev expresses his views through the narrator that was invited to an execution and into the before activities of the execution. The narrator explains the roar of the crowd and explains that it is like the ocean, this comparison shows that the crowd and the noise seemed to be never ending, just like the ocean. The explanation of the crowd plays a sigificant role because it seems like a normal thing. People are there drinking and having fun, they don’t realize that they are just watching someone be killed, they think of it more as a social gathering than an execution. Through out the piece he refers to the execution as a show. That is what the crowd thought it to be, not a horrible killing of a human being that is just like them, but as a production on a stage . By including this metaphor in the piece, it enhances the reason why there was such a big crowd, they did not necessarily want a person to die, they wanted a show. They wanted to see justice served, whether it was death or not, they wanted education. Would it have been any different if there was no execution, and it was just a party? 

For the most part Turgenev’s argument is very strong, he does have the weakness that he does not give all points of view. He strictly stays in one person, who is against it, and he does not write what the criminal thinks, what a spectator thinks or what a government person thinks. Just the one side of view is great, but by not showing the others, the reader can not fully understand the situation. One could be against capital punishment, like Turgenev, but they might not see that a person who was close to the criminal might be against it. The reader needs to see all views in order to realize if Tropmann really should have been executed and whether it was just to do it in front of a huge crowd, instead of in private.

Through out the piece he refers to the execution as a show. That is what the crowd thought it to be, not a horrible killing of a human being that is just like them, but as a production on a stage . By including this metaphor in the piece, it enhances the reason why there was such a big crowd, they did not necessarily want a person to die, they wanted a show. They wanted to see justice served, whether it was death or not, they wanted education.

Turgenev makes a great argument on the negativities of capital punishment, but if that is eliminated, then how will justice be served? Although public executions are a horrible thing, some sort of punishment that goes with the crime must be carried out. If some sort of justice is not served, then the crowd, the public, may go crazy if nothing happens. Chaos could break out.

Blog Entry 15

Enrich describes cowboys as strong yet gentle. She also describes them as not being good communicators. Although some things seem negative toward cowboys, the overall tone that she has toward them is admirable. By using descriptive diction, Enrich enhances her point that the way that society has shaped the image of cowboys is not the way that they really are. Enrich starts her essay off with a description of a Marlboro add. She describes her longing for cowboys. But the Marlboro add shows a cowboy as tough, but she describes the ones she knows as gentle. Society has put the image on cowboys that they are bad at communicating and that it has become a bad thing, but she puts the tone that it is because they are alone in the hills and on the ranch for so long that it is more difficult for them to communicate. The use of stong diction allows Enrich to enhance her view on cowboys.

Blog Entry 11

Culminating Writers Profile:
1.) My writing has changed because it has acquired a new thought process. It has stayed the same because I still find myself getting off topic.
2.) I think my strength in writing is giving detail, I reinforce them by writing descriptive papers.
3.) I see introduction paragraphs, vagueness and rambling as my weaknesses. I am working on getting new ideas on how to start essays, and getting descriptive on the right things so I will not get off topic.
Evaluating Your Writing Process:
1.) I would rewrite the introductory paragraph and add more to the conclusion.
2.) The easiest element to improve will be taking away unneeded detail and words.
3.) The biggest problem I had in this essay was starting the essay initially and staying on topic.
Evaluating Your Successes:
1.) The most successful large scale revision I had in this essay was the way I started the body paragraphs.
2.) Instead of rambling on the wole time, I managed to find good quotes and used descrptive words the portrayed the main point of my essay.
3.) I do not think that I did a very good job picking and writing to a certain audience, I was too vague.
Being Honest With Self:
1.) The most intimidating part of this writing process was starting the essay, to overcome it I started with the body paragraphs and then I wrote the intro paragraph.
2.) Reading intro paragraphs from other writers definions essays inspired me to use different techniques.
3.) I used rhetorical questions in my essay after I read other students essays.
4.) I learned, from my peers, that I should use just a little bit more detail on certain aspects of my writing.
5.) I see myself as an improving writer that has learned many new things but I feel as if I have many new things to learn and that I can add to my writing to make it a more strong and complete essay.

Blog Entry 14

Secrecy can be found in every aspect of daily life. Sante states that the internet takes away all privacy. Once something is posted, there is no way to know that it will ever come off. A persons privacy can never be truly private on the internet.
The next topic mentioned in Sante's essay was the Soviet Union. Due to many rules and regulations secrecy became a large ritual in their daily lives. In order to become a better place, the Soviets would hold secret meetings. Although this part of the essay was a little bit confusing, it still stressed the problem of secrecy. They might not have done it for a bad reason, but secrecy still is a secret.
The last topic in Sante's essay is confessional culture, it is taught in churches that confessing is the way to heaven. It takes away any chance of a person to have privacy. They have become so caught up in daily activities, that the thought that they would not confess something, would scare a person because confessing is the right thing to do. People also tells another their secrets because they want to feel close to them and confide in them.