Some Final Thoughts

Here we are. After dozens of writing assignments, demanding essays and an ominous research paper, it only seems natural for one to reflect on what one may or may not have achieved over the course of the semester. Frankly, the volume of writing we’ve been able to complete in 16 weeks surprises me. With the exception of emails and Facebook wall postings, who really writes as often and with as much determination as we have in a non-academic setting? But what has been even more surprising is that the quantity has been accompanied by gradually increasing quality. Everyone who has survived the last16 weeks seems to have definitely shown signs of improvement as well - as a certain express a certain level of enjoyment in the writing process itself. One can see it in the fascinating weekly blog posts, and even in some of the formal essay drafts I’ve had the privilege of peer reviewing.

If there is one thing with has stood out for me this semester, it has been the blogging assignment. I cannot emphasize how much I originally dreaded the thought of having to write 500+ words every week about topics “TBD”. But the experience has been much more enjoyable, and for reasons I have explained in previous blogs, immensely helpful in boosting my confidence. For anyone looking to seriously improve his or her writing in a deliberate way, I strongly suggest starting a blog and picking a new topic each week to ponder in words. It will be well worth the effort in the end. And perhaps one will meet a new friend.

Well my fellow classmates, I hope I have at least not bored you this semester with my writings. I could never expect to impress, but always strive to entertain, and even sometimes enlighten some of you with my quirky style. Hopefully, each of you has gleamed some nugget of information or insight into writing with style and purpose from this class. We have to hand it to Professor Gross when it comes to transforming an otherwise painful experience of taking yet another English class into a curious, fascinating and very memorable journey that will (and should) stick with us for many years to come through our writing.

Good luck to all of you in your future endeavors, and God bless.

Your friendly Blogger

Being Careful What We Wish For...

Now that the insanity of the research project is nearly complete, I cannot help but notice the striking similarity between the abysmal outcome of the Iranian Revolution and other revolutions of the past. The Iranian people had a dream of a new nation where tyranny would cease to exist once and for all. They had dreamed of a free society where freedom of expression and some minimal form of civility where people could not be rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to secret prisons.

It’s not hard to see why many Iranians felt threatened and oppressed by the Shah and his ruling party. The Shah of Iran imposed many new “Western” ideals upon the Muslim people of Iran – presumably to bring Iran into the new century. However, as with any absolute rule, power always seems to corrupt absolutely. Despite his best efforts, the Shah’s legacy of tyranny and oppression had been no different than his predecessors. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was supposed to change all that. The people demanded CHANGE they could believe in, and they fought for it with fervent vigor.

Unfortunately, things change for the worst. Women lost what little rights they had in an effort to enforce conformity and “religious morality” in the new Islamic Republic. Research on the subject of populist revolution has opened my eyes as to how easily the public can be made to believe that change is necessarily good. Things did change drastically for the average Iranian - one can believe that.

Some of those changes include newly formed morality patrols that roam the streets of Iran offering imprisonment or even death for saying anything that challenges the religious elite, or even for wearing banned lipstick, perfume, or short skirts. It seems that the average Iranian had only replaced one form of tyranny with other, and sworn allegiance to a new Supreme Leader – the Ayatollahs. If anything, the new regime had turned back the clock of progress and stifled the cultural and industrial evolution of Iran. The desire for “change” at any price had come at a terrible price in human lives, dignity and economic stagnation for the Iranian people.The Russian Revolution did not fair much better with its failure to live up to the dream of a utopian society; nor did the populist revolutions of Vietnam or Cambodia in the 1960’s. Even the idealistic, feel-good promises of “change we can believe in” during our last Presidential election have left much to be desired. While our President may have had the right intentions at heart, our lawmakers have squandered the opportunity these past 2 years to take the heartfelt enthusiasm for a approach to government with less “politics as usual” and more controlled spending. Instead, it seems that the new ruling party has only managed to twist the dream of change into a nightmare of party politicos, poor resource management, and in fighting. Perhaps we should all be careful what we wish for the next time we get the urge to change things so abruptly. Once we had over the proverbial keys to a new ruling elite, one can never be sure if we really will be any better off than before until its too late.

The Art of the Research Paper

Does anyone really enjoy writing research papers? When I was younger, I used to dread the thought of writing anything longer than 2 or 3 pages – or requiring more than a superficial analysis of a 1-diminensional topic. However, as I gained more experience in writing formal research papers for college, and eventually for work, I began to appreciate the process. In many ways, I had begun to associate such writing efforts with “art”.

When I speak of “art” I am not implying that that the effort is entirely creative or abstract, but I am suggesting that there are several layers to writing a successful research paper. As with any form of art, there is the technical layer of which one must master the basic tools and skills to accomplish the task at hand. But then there is the second, more complex layer which involves creativity and free-form association. As with trying to tie-in a factoid or quote from a scholarly source for a research paper, the artist must tie-in one’s own life experiences, observations or reference images to form the painting or sculpture in the artist’s mind. It is that melding of what we know, what we learn and what skills we accumulated to create something new that has so fascinated me about writing research papers. From that perspective, one could are that undertaking a research project can be as fun as creating a work of art that one can hang over the fireplace and point to with pride (hopefully).

With regards to the research project for this English course, the same underlying sense of purpose and art still applies for me. However, that is not to say that I had not been confronted with multiple challenges. Among the most difficult to overcome has occurred during the preparatory stage. The question of what topic to writing about has not been trivial. If my writing experience has taught me anything, it is that one cannot “bullshit” one’s way through a 6+ page research paper because there just aren’t enough “generic” phrases and filler words available in most people’s writing toolbox. Picking the right topic is crucial for me. And to help me achieve that I ended up writing a rough outline of possible forms my research project could take for each of the proposed topics in the RP handout. It has been a time consuming process, but the end result will be worth it as I now know that I have enough to say about the topic! More importantly, I believe the quality if the paper will be improved because I am more excited about writing on the selected topic.

The other area of potential difficultly has involved in-text citation and selecting the right reference sources. Poorly selected sources can derail even the best efforts to form a logical argument. My worst fear is usually being unable to support a claim made earlier in a long research paper – or to have my main argument lose steam mid-way through the paper for lack of supporting evidence or focus. Again, to help me overcome this I have relied heavily on the preliminary outlines created for each potential topic. Doing so has allowed me to “pre-visualize” the structure of the paper before committing ink to paper. Hopefully, the net result will be an effortless first draft, or a nightmare assignment from hell.

Blogging with Style

This week’s writing assignment poses an interesting question: what does my writing style really say about me as the author? I had never given this question much thought in the past, but it seems very relevant now. I, like many others in this online course, have written numerous online blogs about a multitude of subjects - including some very personal ones. Upon a closer re-examination of my own online efforts these past few months, I have discovered several pleasantly surprising trends.

Firstly, I am pleased to see that my online writing style is not as “stiff” or formal as much of my offline writing. While I do pride myself in writing as grammatically correct as possible, it appears I may have successfully avoided my traditional overly “scientific” spin by injecting humor and anecdotal stories more frequently than usual. To be honest, I rather enjoy writing for the bloggosphere. It truly enables one to write openly about any subject while still requiring that one pay attention to the quality, conciseness and tone of one’s writing. After all, the entire world is the potential audience, so those traditional writing elements are crucial for delivering a readable blog. I feel as though blogging is more akin to “art”, for example, than other online writing mediums such as Facebook or Web email. The experience of blogging for me could be best described as a hybrid between a great conversation and writing scenes for a short story or screenplay.

Secondly, I am even more pleased to see that my writing as positively affected other readers. I love the comments – please keep them coming! It really fulfills that feeling of “intelligent conversation” I had mentioned earlier. And it creates a sense of pride in me that I had actually written something both meaningful and entertaining for others – even if it’s only in the context of this course.

Hopefully, I have adequately conveyed to everyone reading my blogs a sense of quirkiness, balanced with determined seriousness and a zest for life that is uniquely my own. More importantly, I hope to have made someone smile - maybe even laugh - in the process.

What the >Bleep< ?

The world of TV and film 50 years seems like a distant memory today. Ethical standards and guidelines for the usage of foul language, nudity and violence seem almost archaic by today’s standards. Since the inception of the independent United States government agency the FCC (or Federal Communications Commission) in 1934, the debate has raged on about how much regulation is too much – and how much freedom of speech should content creators really have over the airwaves.

I can still remember that famous comedy routine by comedian George Carlin where he recites the "seven dirty words" one absolutely cannot say on TV. The controversy was not so much that he used the ‘F” word or other profanity, but that should there even be a list of such words which “can not be spoken”. That is censorship in the eyes of many, and yet an issue of the right to free speech for others. Not surprisingly, in 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the FCC's indecency judgment on Carlin's comedy monologue about seven words one can never say on TV. Just 25 years later, U2’s lead singer Bono gets away with shouting the “F” word during the 2003 Golden Globe Awards broadcast - the FCC ruled it as not obscene shortly thereafter. What a difference a few decades can make!

Amazingly, it appears that the FCC does NOT have an official list of banned words. It is the CONTEXT in which certain profanity is used. Part of that context is the time of day in which the profanity (and sexuality and violence) is broadcast. A TV broadcast of harsh profanity at 2p.m. when children could be listening will almost certainly bring the wrath of the FCC. However, according to recent FCC’s Enforcement Bureau notes, material considered merely “indecent” but not obscene may be broadcast between 10p.m. - 6 a.m. And these laws don't apply to obscenity or indecency on cable-only channels! One only has to watch 15 minutes of Sex in the City and The Sopranos to realize that there are no holds barred on bad language.

To be honest, I believe that the current FCC codes are fair and very applicable to today’s viewing audience. With special ratings for TV programs and expanded ratings for films, people have more information from which to decide if their child should watch a program or not. It’s really up to the viewer to decide what is “obscene” or “indecent” or just plain entertaining.

Practice Makes Perfect

Although I had been somewhat apprehensive about the volume and frequency of writing required for this course, I am glad to have enrolled in it. I suppose I had become complacent about writing in general. Rather than viewing it as a skill to be honed and mastered, I saw it as a necessary evil – even a chore when it had been for work related reports or briefings. And then comes English 103 with Professor Gross.

The blogging exercises have been the most rewarding and perhaps the most beneficial. I’ve learned to write with much greater efficiency and accuracy as a result of assignments requiring retrospective, introspective and even circumspective contemplation about the world around me. It’s been a lot of fun because I rarely get to reflect on life's many events in my normal “9 to 5” routine. It would seem that regularly exercising the mind and the pen can do just as much good for the body as 10 laps around the block.

The other important area of development for me has been analytical writing via the essay assignments. I have been particularly pleased with my recent efforts at writing a formal synthesis essay. Interestingly, the entire experience had been reminiscent of my research paper writing days were the goal was to synthesize a vast body of knowledge with newly found observations in the lab. Only through careful analysis and synthesis of data and facts could the real power of science shine. I never expected to could apply to everyday writing, as well.

And then there are those group assignments. To be honest, I have never been a big fan of group activities in school. More often then not one or two members of the group get left holding the bag for the entire assignment. But surprisingly, the groups I have had the privilege to participate in have been very cooperative and enjoyable. Did my writing skills improve as a result? Probably not, but I do believe my team building skills may have benefited from the experience. Coupled with the fact that some groups could achieve a virtual collective consciousness in an entirely virtual classroom, it has been memorable.

As the old proverbial saying goes, if you don’t use it you will surely lose it. Personally, I am thankful to have taken the opportunity to enroll in this class when I needed a creative jolt the most.

So You Think That Was Funny?

I enjoy political cartoons very much. Whether I catch one in the Wall Street Journal or the local newspaper, political cartoon have a way of stimulating a smirk – and stirring up conversation with my peers. However, I believe certain political cartoonists have stepped over the line one too many times with personal, insulting satire of former President Bush. Don’t get me wrong, I am not and have not been a big supporter of “W”. In my opinion, his policies were often questionable and demanded more public debate than it generally received. And yes, I frequently chuckled at his endless public gaffs or misspoken phrases. But he was the President of the United States and represented the attitudes of a democratic and free nation. Good or bad, he was a man trying to do his best in an incredibly difficult job.

Where I believe the proverbial line was crossed occurred with publications of personally insulting cartoons depicting his family or his “stupidity” in a way that was not political commentary or even humorous. It was just plain nasty and overtly hateful. If one doesn’t agree with another person, should one openly exhibit pure, unfiltered hatred for that person as a sign of disagreement? I don’t think most of us would do that to another person we have strong disagreement with – would we? I certainly would not. And I would expect a certain civility among fellow Americans when it comes to respecting our leaders. Please note that I didn’t say “agreeing” or “praising” or “blindly following” our leaders, but “respecting” them for what the their position represents to the world.

Let me draw a parallel with current President Obama. I voted for him knowing fully that he has extremely liberal ideals. I wanted a “change” more than the status quo with McCain. However, I am finding myself frequently at odds with many of Obama’s "new deal" style agenda over the last 15 months of his tenure. I would openly debate any of his policies. I might even chuckle at a carton depicting him with egg on his face after the initial healthcare plan fiasco last fall. However, I would never tolerate a personally attacking cartoon of him that mocked his ethnicity or his family. Those things are not intended for humor, I believe, but insult. I honestly don’t see how newspaper publishers can allow such personal attacks to see the light of day – even in the form of a political cartoon.