Control Room Response

Last week in English we watched a documentary called the “Control Room”; a documentary that gave an insight into the use of bias within the Iraq War of 2003. The video itself was heavily analytical of the US Army and anything that had a connection with its reporting. It was mainly focused on the Al Jazeera news reporting agency and its attempt to provide a story through a neutral lense and by the perspective of the Arabic society and their thoughts of the war. After watching the film, we were given several prompts, including “Deception is just as bad as telling an outright lie”. For me to come to a conclusion or decision as to whether I agree or disagree with the statement should be based on the footage of the film. I say so only because before watching the documentary I was virtually undecided. During the film, it was pointed out that the Us Army was incredibly unclear over their positioning of their soldiers. Sometimes even denying where the troops were, or would hint these locations to protect themselves from the enemy having additional information. However, with this vagueness, came some slight deception of information, because the US Army could claim to be almost anywhere in Iraq, and the rest of the western world would believe them. The documentary often stated how Al Jazeera had been made out as an enemy, due to how they disagreed with the positioning of the US army. The documentary pointed out that Al Jazeera used an expert geologist of Iraq to try and determine the positioning of the US Military by the thought of them saying they had captured a bridge in a southern area. The expert indicated that there were no bridges, and that instead the US army was deceiving western media because they wanted to indicate more progress than had been produced.

Answering the prompt, I would agree with the idea that Deception is just as bad as telling a lie. Mainly because, all of those who had used this deception understood the consequences, knew that they were tricking all of the people listening and watching, and is purposely manipulating the power they have over someone else. In this case, it’s the US army and its troops. These consequences are the unfair demonizing of the Al Jazeera news agency. If an outright lie had been produced, then possibly the excuse was that it was to trick the enemy of the US Military and there would have been little to no consequences. But this use of deception also tricked the US population and other western media societies, because of their lack of evidence supporting the statements provided.

Media Bias

Baltimore police: Officers 'compelled' to chase 13-year-old with BB gun

Two detectives, one male and one female, were returning from a strategy session on how to deal with current gun violence, when they spotted a teen walking down the street with what seemed to be a firearm.

Without hesitation and questioning, they forcibly ordered the teen to drop the gun, however this frightened the 13-year-old, which caused the innocent child to run for 150 yards. Once he had noticed their pursuit, he attempted to reveal the truth about the gun, by yelling “its not real”. However due to the arrogance of the officers, this young individual ended up being shot by the male officer.

The officers question as to why the boy ran, and why he had the gun in the first place, as well as their justification for shooting the harmless child, by stating that they could not have known that the gun had been a replica.

Although the child had done a questionable action, these officers should be more at fault for the fact that they had scared the young individual, chased and shot him without questioning and proof that the gun was a real weapon or of any danger to civilians around them.

The child is expected to make a full recovery, but may end up not trusting the men and women who are meant to protect him. 

Sylvia Plath practice IOCC

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2pgsUlNJpejOGpRY0RjSU9ocG8

Coriolanus Practice IOC Outline

Coriolanus practice IOC outline

Introduction:

• ·         Introduce the play, state how it was created by William Shakespeare.
• ·         State that this passage is from Act 1 scene 3
• ·         Say that it is a conversation between Volumnia and Virgilia.

Significance:

• ·         The significance of this passage, is to present Coriolanus’s mother, characterise her, and present foreshadowing into how this play may turn out, due to her influence on her son.
• ·         Use examples found from lines 5 to 17 as evidence.

Body 1:

• ·         This passage provides a conversation between two main characters within the play, both showing opposite sides of women within society. Which is used for the indirect characterisation of Virgilia.
• ·         Use lines 1-5 to state how she thinks and would act with Corilanus as her husband.
• ·         Use lines 10-15 for what she sees as her perfect son.

Body 2:

• ·         Sate how imagery is used within this text to create a picture of this scene.
• ·         This imagery can be seen as what Volumnia sees as the perfect man within her time, and what she believes in.
• ·         Sate that this imagery can be used as indirect characterisation of Coriolanus as well, with constant remarks as two what he looks like.

Conclusion:

•  Overall, this passage introduces Volumnia and her role within the play, and her relationship to characters. Through the text, her beliefs and influence over her son can be seen, providing enough evidence for the foreshadowing of the play.

Practice IOC

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2pgsUlNJpejYmQteGwwbHF2VUU

Wallace and Munro analysis

David Foster Wallace's commencement speech "This Is Water" is an extremely powerful text, that I have had the pleasure of reading. Wallace's ideas about the way we think have caused many people to check how they interact with the world around them. In This Is Water, Wallace states, that we as humans tend to think in a very dull and monotone way. Our lives are ruled by our personal emotions, gain, causing us to become trapped with ourselves. As a result of this, we tend to view the world purely as we see it in our first glance around, our instant emotional reaction to the situations that we are in results in a narrow and dissociated view of the world. Consequently, he proposes the idea that we must relearn to think. We as human beings must learn to re-examine the things around us, and consider different viewpoints, however unlikely. We must inspect our initial emotional reaction to our surroundings and ask, “What if this isn't the way that life is?" Because almost nothing is impossible. Wallace supplements this thinking with the example of a tired person in a supermarket, showing how they don't care about anybody else, and their interactions with others are just in their way. This then leads to a lot more of a discussion, where you would consider the person in front of you, and how they were doing, ultimately changing your perspective. Writers have recognized the importance of the emotional connection with the world around us for centuries. Alice Munro being one of them, her stories are plainly based on emotion and the real life experiences of the character. Rich characterization, plot development, and an outstanding view into the inner thoughts of a human character. However, it's not just the content and characters of her stories that seeks to persuade the reader to look outside their own perspective, it’s the base of her as writer that allows for such impactful texts, which aids in her choices for setting, characters, plot etc. Flashbacks to the past, narratives and anecdotes can be found throughout her stories, having meaning and emotion that positively forces the reader to reconsider what they already about the individuals they read about within her texts. With this, Munro can share all of her messages and ideals, as well as show us that we should question the societal norms, similar to Wallace’s way to relearn, this show a real connection between different writers, with both having you relearn your thought patterns to understand where they are coming from. 

Language and Government

Welcome back

During my summer break, I encountered something that I had forgotten about, that being the advertisement of politicians for the role of the president within South Africa. I had immediately noticed all of the posters that had been place around the cities, townships and urban areas, with all of them promoting a specific party. I began to analyse them, sort of like we did in the beginning of the year with the advertisements in Language and Media, almost immediately recognising the similarities between the posters and advertisements. The use of bright colours to project the poster forward, use of language, both simple and different a lot of the time, due to the country having eleven official languages. After applying what I had learnt in the beginning of the year, to that current situation, I discovered how they used the bright colours that stood out to attract people, used very simple language so that those who had not gained  a full or no education could understand and feel as if they were being looked after by the politicians and the government. Through this I was able to grasp a firm understanding of how the parties worked, with most aiming at gather their votes from the uneducated masses of South Africa, however others either focusing on the middle class, or a mix of both.