Torture Debate

The big question thats has been knocking upon the United States Government door in the past decade is "Is torture an acceptable form of information extraction when the lives of innocent civilians are in imminent danger?"
Many believe that any violation upon our natural human rights should not be accepted and torture is obviously an inhumane act committed upon a human being. The idea of bringing physical pain upon a human being to retrieve information seems to many that such an action can be prevented. The United States Government has been accused during Operation Iraqi Freedom of treating innocent civilians inhumanely. U.S. Soldiers received higher orders to take whatever actions necessary to get the needed information from these Iraqi civilians. The United States has been harshly criticized for the inhumane Nature in which they treat their prisoners, and something needs to be done to keep the lives of the innocent from danger and yet keep the prisoners natural human rights intact.
I believe the answer lies within the tactics that are used to extract information from the prisoners.

Joy

The word Joy to me means that any person or being who is currently satisfied with their present situation in life is joyous. It's a suttle feeling of satisfaction within that isn't obviously seen by the public but can be seen by close friends or family. It's not an excited or overly expressive feeling but you yourself know the that you are truly happy or content in your current situation. When im joyful i am in a certain mood where I feel pleased with my life at the time and its hard to bring my mood down or up because I'm at a point of satisfaction where I don't want to sway in mood. I chose the picture of Siddartha because in my mind he is one of the only people who truly reached a point of eternal satisfaction in his life. Through life experience and hardship Siddartha overcame the materialistic values of society and found a point of enlightenment. To me he is the definition of "joy" because he was at a constant state of peace with himself and thats what being joyous truly means to me.

The cave & The matrix

In The Allegory of the cave, the famous Greek philosopher, Plato, describes the world people live in as a cave with a long entrance to the light. He says that people are born with necks and legs fettered, so that they can only see and walk in one direction which is opposite of the light shining into the cave. So basically they are unable to reach the light that tempts them at the entrance of the cave. I believe Plato is saying that people are born into a society that has set boundaries and limits that hinder people from reaching outside of the box. All people have the light within their sights but cannot break the barriers that limit them from reaching a new sense of enlightenment. In the matrix, there lies the same problem that Plato describes but in a more modern and technological sense. Society in the matrix is shown as a computer program that peoples minds are trapped in whereas in Plato's essay he describes society as a cave that people are also trapped in. Both The Matrix and The Cave are very similar to each other but differ in a sense of technological and modern advancement of society. The picture of the cave with light streaming in at the entrance very clearly shows Plato's idea of society as the cave that people are trapped in. My next picture is a scene from the Matrix that shows Humans being used as a battery source to power the machine world they live in. Both pictures are symbolic in showing how people are trapped in the limitations of society,.

In this image Pro surfer Ben Skinner is being used to promote a British Surfing magazine called Pitpilot because he says he's dyslexic and it's easy to read. The company that created the add was Pitpilot who is trying to get people to subscribe to their magazine by using Skinner as their promotional tool and they offer free Volcom merchandise to the first thirty subscribers. Pitpilot is using logos by having Skinner's comment on the add and pathos by enticing people to subscribe soon to possibly win free Volcom merchandise. Since pitpilot's main subscribers are people from Britain they are using one of the top Britsh surfers in the world to sell their magazine because people know who he is and have respect for his surfing ability making them more likely to purchase the magazine. Pitpilot had to make some kind of agreement with the surfing company Volcom to use their merchandise for the first thirty subscribers.

Shitty First Drafts

My writing process compared to Anne Lamont's is pretty similar in alot of ways. I usually just sit down and think about the topic I'm writing about and put down all my thoughts on paper no matter what they might be. Anne Lamont says she just writes whatever no matter what it is and it could be up to a couple pages long of sloppy, unorganized, chicken scratch. She says on her second attempt at the paper she takes colored pens and and takes out whatever she thinks is unnecessary, finds a solid ending and starting point, and then writes a second draft. On my second draft I usually go in and cross out or add parts to the draft that improve the organization and structure of the paper. On the third revision she would go start the whole process over again wheres I just try to clean up my paper and add any new ideas or thoughts to improve the quality of the information in the paper. Overall I feel that my style of writing isn't that much different from lamonts style which is good to know that my style is similar to such an experienced writer. yet it's kinda cool to me to know that i'm also different in some ways because every writer has their own style of going about writing and revising their drafts. It was cool to me to hear that most writers struggle in the same ways that i do when writing and it isnt as east as people make it out to be.