Temple: A Passage To India

A Passage To India, concludes with a section named Temple. The shortest section in the book, but an important one. Right off the bat, after retading only a few pages of this section, I was inspired to write about a particular passage and idea. "The corridor in the palace at Mau opened through other corridors into a courtyard.... he and the six colleagues who supported him clashed their cymbals, hit small drums, droned upon a portable harmonium, and sang: "Tukaram, Tukaram..."' As I read this passage, I felt as if I was at peace, just as the characters in the story were. Despite all the tension that was going on between them and the English, they still remembered who they were. They remembered there duties as a people and whom they owed respects to. They put up with the way they were treated by the English all throughout the year. However at this particular time of year, they came together as one, and worshiped there God. It just goes to show that the worst brings out the best in people. The Indians really showed that they were the bigger people.

What do you think this revealed about the Indians as a people?

Do you think if the English were watching this ceremony, they would have felt differently about the Indians?

From the ending of the book, what did you think about it as a whole?

Week 2 A Passage To India

As I continued to read A Passage To India, I noticed that I constantly came across stereotypes about the Indians from the Englishmen who lived in India. "Let me explain. Natives don't respect any the more after meeting one, you see....Why, the kindest thing once can do to a native is to let him die,..." The English, according to this quote, believed the Indians to be disrespectful and worthless. They felt that it was there job to come to India and bring about some kind of order within the Natives. To the English, the Indians were their subordinates, even though it was their native land. I however disagree with this notion of the Indians being disrespectful and worthless. All throughout the novel, the English came off more so as the disrespectful ones. They didn't treat the Indians with any respect, and Ronny, a high government official in India from England, even stated that, "We're not out here for the purpose of behaving pleasantly!" Instead they were forcing the Indians or at least trying to force them to adopt their English ways and rules for maintaining what they believed to be justice. The Indians were simply misunderstood because they were not accustomed to the customs of the English. As Aziz stated, they weren't used to wearing such clothing the English wore. Aside from this, the Indians were treated lower than the English. This however is contradicting of one of the reasons why they were in India, which was to convert the Indians to their religious beliefs in God. If they believed that God created everyone equally, then why did they treat the Indians as subordinates? I also found it as an excuse to blame the women for the actions of the men. As Ronny said, they were just trying to appease their women. If this was the case, then they could have stayed in England instead of journeying to India. Ultimately the actions of the English as far as they way the treated the Indians, contradicted their beliefs of how the Indians treated them.

How do you feel about the way that the Indians are treated by the English?

Could you relate this treatment to another race of the 22nd century?

Do you disagree with my claim or agree, and why or why not?

Week 1 A Passage To India

'There is no painting and scarcely any carving in the bazaars. The very wood seems made of mud, the inhabitants of mud moving. So abased, so the Ganges comes down it might be expected to wash the excrescence back into the soil." This quote from A Passage To India, by E. M. Foster on the scenery and life of Chandrapore, is very significant to the flow of this novel because it in a way sets the mood of this community and the racial tension that is supposed to exist between the British and the Indians. After reading this quote, I felt that the community would be life-less and that this "excrescence" would be this sense of racial tension that occurs in the lives of the natives and the British colonials. This tension resulted in the British feeling like they were superior to the Indians, which relates to the reason for their dwellings on a higher ground than that of the Indians dwellings. This type of tension relates to the same racial tension that persists today among minorities. From the tension that occurs between African Americans and Hispanics to the tension that still persists between African Americans and Caucasians. There are some among these races that feel that they are superior to others among different races, and so they themselves will cause tension by exercising this "superiority". Another reason I felt this way about Chandrapore because of it's dull description, was because there were no paintings drawn anywhere in the bazaars. Paintings bring objects and ideas to life with color and sharp images. Reading that there were none of these, made me think of Chandrapore as "city full of the dead". These first depictions of the city, showed me that the mood of the novel would be boring.

Questions For Discussion

1. Did anything resonate with you as you read the description of Chandrapore?

2. How do you think the tension between the Indians and English will excel?

3. Does Chandrapore's description connect with the people of this community?

How Soccer Explains The Sentimental Hooligan

In this chapter of How Soccer Explains the World, Foer explains the rising of Hooliganism and it's downfall. Throughout the chapter Foer explains his interview with a man by the name of Alan Garrison and he tells about his life as a soccer hooligan and the leader of one of the English organized crews of soccer hooliganism. Throughout the interview Alan tells about his childhood and how he came to like an English soccer club know as Chelsea, and then how he came to be a hooligan for that club. he explains his battles, brusises and then how the hooliganism or at least the original hooliganism started to decrease. Alan started to explain how big corporations who invested in the soccer teams started influencing on who went to the games from rebellious young men to young men and women with office jobs and the average worker. In the end Alan discussed how hooliganism then started to become organized and the hooligans would run if they had organized a beating against a rivals's club fans and saw the cops around. He explained how his pride in hooliganism of Chelsea had died along with the globalization of these big corporations such as McDonald's.

How Soccer Explains The World Chunk #1

How Soccer Explains The World, by Franklin Foer discusses the ways in which globalization has produce both cultural and economic failures. Foer does this with his use of soccer as a metaphor to show how the game explains this globalization. Foer when he was young, was horrible at soccer and because he couldn't play; decided to thoroughly study the game and soon became an expert in all aspects of the game. This is why he's able to explain why soccer explains the world and does this in his first chunk with the gangs created in what used to be Yugoslavia. He explains that fans of rival teams would create games and attack each other and even threaten opposing teams players. This was also mainly do to the different forms of governments being fought over by the Serbs who were against communism. Foer uses anecdotes of a once powerful instigator and notorious criminal of crimes committed by rival gangs while also producing an interview with those, who once were a part of these games. Thus Foer's first chunk explains different gangs, violence, and sects produce from globilizations failures.

"But What Do You Mean?" by Deborah Tannen

Deborah Tannen's essay, "But What Do You Mean?", discusses the ways men and women differ when holding a conversation with the opposite sex. Tannen explores seven topics of discussion where men and women differ from including; apologies, criticism, thank-yous, fighting, praise, complaints, and jokes. Tannen uses anecdotes, expert opinions, and contrasts to show how women and men would differ in a conversation. Tannen's contrasts range from women being more sensitive when holding a conversation with someone from men being straightforward in a conversation, and not holding back the truth. Tannen claims that women tend to take the other person's feeling's into account when talking with him or her; while me on the other hand, don't. Tannen's essay serves to show how one can have a conversation with someone of the opposite sex and still get his or her point across without confusing the other person.

Do you think Tannen feels critical towards the way men tend to hold their conversations?

How do you think Tannen's essay can help with conversational boundaries presented in her essay between men and women?

What does Tannen mean when she say's that "men are designed to maintain the one-up position, or at least avoid appearing one-down"?

anecdote: I recently sat in on a meeting at an insurance company where the sole woman, Helen, said "I'm sorry" or "I apologize" repeatedly. At one point she said, "I'm thinking out loud. I apologize." (391)

diction: Although the problem might have been outright sexism, I suspect her speech style, which differs from that of her male colleagues, masks her competence. (391)

irony: When you state your ideas, you hedge in order to fend off potential attacks. (393)

metaphor: When the other speaker doesn't reciprocate, a woman may feel like someone on a seesaw whose partner abandoned his end. (392)

personification: "Troubles Talk" can be a way to establish rapport with a colleague. (394)

D.C. to Wall Street: Drop Dead

Investors' anger at Obama is misplaced. Stock indexes don't 'think.' They don't like one president and dislike the next.

Daniel Gross's Newsweek article D.C to Wall Street Drop Dead, suggest that Wall Street who fueled the financial crisis in the stock market are now blaming Obama who's trying to fix the problem and wasn't even in office when the problem arose. Gross say's that this" bout of wealth destruction" started in October 2007 during Bush's presidency. He even restates what it seems many articles are saying, and that is that some believe Obama is doing too much. Except in Gross's article he just states that the only thing Obama should get rid of on his to-do list are Wall Street's opinions and ignore the Dow. As Gross say's, "Having deprived Americans of so much of their wealth, the market is today like Rush Limbaugh: an unpopular loudmouth prone to emotional outbursts."

Why does it seem that everyone is trying to make Obama out to be the bad guy when the economy wasn't his fault to begin with and all he's trying to do is make it better?

Does Gross sound as if he is trying to defend Obama or just make Wall Street sound as if they are "cry babies"?

Time Magazine: Obama's Reform Agenda: Is He Trying to Do Too Much?

David Von Drehle and Michael Scherer's Time Magazine article, Obama's Reform Agenda: Is He Trying Yo Do Too Much?, suggest that Barak Obama is trying to do too much and in reality is doing too little. The author's uses other expert opinions that also agree and believe that Obama's number one concern should be the economy. According to this article the wealthiest investor in the U.S., Warren Buffet stated that, "Job 1 is to win the war, the economic war. Job 2 is to win the economic war...". Retired CEO's of the Intel corp and General Electric's also agree with this comment. The article later goes on to say that, " promising higher standards for hiring, tighter controls on spending and greater transparency in execution", Obama is just setting himself up to let the Nation down. I agree that Obama is trying to do too much at once, but at least by adressing the issues and coming up with plans that would fix each issue instead of waiting for one to be solved; Obama is setting up guidelines that the Nation will know he will be following. This way the citizens of America won't have to wait in vain and in darkness. They would have some sort of deliverance to look forward to.

How would the authors claim affect the rest of the U.S. are who are currently behind Obama's policy's if the citizens of America were to read this article?

Why do the authors of this article believe it's such a bad thing or at least unintelligent idea to try and fix the Nation's problems all at once?

What we are really eating…

In the last chunk of Fast Food Nation, Schlosser brings attention to what could actually be in the meet we eat at fast food restaurants. He first starts off with an anecdote about a young man of the age of twenty who had gotten sick from eating beef he had at a barbeque. When the beef was tested it was found to have the lethal food borne pathogen, E. coli O157:H7. Then as further investigation shows the same beef company who sold this beef also supplied Burger King with that same beef. The result of this was a beef recall by the company who had created the beef. Schlosser then goes on to say that about 200,000 people are contracted with a food borne disease everyday resulting in about 900 hospitalized and 1 fourteen deaths. He then goes on discussing the symptoms of this lethal pathogen and others that have arose. He list one symptom of E. coli which occurs in children and has been none to have a 1 in 5 or 5% kill rate. What was most irksome was his description of how the workers who pack the meat and or slaughter the meat defecate and urinate on the floor where the meat could have contact with. They even upon finding a rat or any sort of outside substance in the beef merely pull it out and continuing packing. What’s more is Schlosser also stated that the meat packing industry even attempted to stop a sort of “science-based investigation” that would have perhaps looked into the problem and found solutions for the occurring food borne pathogens. Schlosser here is trying to elucidate the dangers of eating fast food problems specifically the beef because of what could be inside of the meat; so that consumers will become aware of what they are really consuming.

Does Schlosser’s description on the worker’s sanitary habits in the Meatpacking Industry give you second thoughts about eating beef?

Why is it, that, E. coli O157:H7 is able to live in salt water?

If the most common cause of a food borne outbreak is consuming undercooked meat, would that mean that if it’s cooked fully the pathogen would be killed and the meat would become completely harmless

Teenage Success

Further along in Eric Schlosser’s book, he elucidates on the fact that a significant reason for fast food restaurants success is their employment of teenagers. He states how they pay them below minimum wage and how they were able to do because of the deal they made with the government which allowed them to pay underage workers a few cents an hour below minimum wage. Then how restaurants make it so that teenagers won’t have to do much because all of the food is basically made by a machine. Schlosser is now not only trying to exploit fast food corporations use of appeals to children but also how they are capitalizing on making more money’s off of teens by paying the below minimum wage. According to Schlosser behind closed doors fast food restaurants will hire just about anyone who they know won’t mind the below minimum wage pay. Fast food restaurants are basically just taking advantage of teens and others who they know will accept just about any amount of pay so that they could increase their revenue without having to pay more for expenses.

How do you feel about what fast food restaurants are doing to make money? Do you think its ok just because the people who work for them don’t mind working for little pay to pay them barely enough to get buy. Do you think this below minimum wage pay is ok because their workers really don’t do any work because they do have machines basically doing everything for them?

Fast Food Nation Chunk #2

So far Eric Schlosser's novel, Fast Food Nation, focuses on how fast food companies target kids as their sole customers in order to trap them and their parents as "full-time" customers. Eric demonstrates how these companies attempt to trap kids into getting their parents to buy them McDonald's or whatever fast food restaurant it may be at a young age. He gives examples of this by how fast food restaurants try and give toys with kid's meals or build play grounds so as to attract kid's to their restaurants’ and with them their parents. He states their purpose is to get them young so that they will become life customers. Eric also shows how they use advertisements more and more to attract kid's and how fast food companies spend a lot of research figuring out what get's kid's going or what they like. Then he takes readers "behind the scenes" of fast food restaurants in order to show how it’s like to be an employee and how most employees are teens. And how teens are the most likely to get injured on the job. So far Eric is exploiting how fast food corporations try to seem as though they are your friend and one reason of why there is a problem with fast food restaurants.

How is that a fast food corporation who targeting kid's and trapping them or basically "controlling" them seeing as they are manipulated into getting their parents to take them a fast food restaurant not deemed as uncivil or morally unjust?

How will a nation that is represented by fast food, ultimately shape America's way of living or morals?