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This story displays the importance of acknowledging or giving reparations to those to whom a nation has shown injustice or fault. This was illustrated through the repayment of Japanese AMericans following internment. After they were interned, many had lost their homes and had lost even more objects of great moral value. After they were released, however, the US showed sympathy for the innocent harmed, and provided each of the interned with a substantial sum of money. Although this sense of reparation does not directly apply to the descendants of the one's unjustly harmed, the same ideology can back its enactment. Giving reparations to an unjustly harmed race, even if the ones harmed have already been gone, it displays a nation's willingness to accept its faults, and it helps to eliminate some of the racism still occurring within the nation.

Cora

While Willy and Cora are put into similar situations in the readings, Cora differs from Willy in that Cora is where she is through her own beliefs and not through blind conformity to society. Willy had spent his whole life conforming to a society which eventually turned on him, and when he was done conforming, no part of his original self remained. Cora was different. While she did have monetary problems and was not working her dream job, she still had the ideas and urges for change in society that were meaningful to her from the beginning. Willy's profession slowly provided him less income as society changed, and Cora's job did not provide her with much money to live in a nice apartment, but while from a monetary standpoint they were approximately equal, the one thing that Willy did not have that Cora had, was individuality of character, and this vital yet intangible concept drove Willy to insanity and ultimate failure. 

Individual Opportunity

Willy's idea of individual opportunity was one's opportunity to be well liked and generally accepted by the people around him and he consistently illustrated this throughout the novel. Willy always was content when others displayed appreciation for him, mostly by means of making a great sales deal. He would also commonly brag about how well he was liked by the world to his family, which created a bit of resentment with his son. His death further displays his connection with his personal image. When his main contacts died, the world stopped recognizing him, and his son illustrated resentment for him as well, Willy ultimately realized that he was a failure in his own eyes, and he killed himself.

The author's idea of individual opportunity was likely different, and by means of Willy he wished to portray to the world that being well liked is not one and the same with success. There is no clear point in which the author suggests his personal opinions on what it means to be successful, but he likely believed that success consists of a multitude of different aspects, and that believing and chasing only one of them, will most likely lead to one's personal death and realization of personal failure. 

Discussion Question about death of a salesman

Was Willy's death the fault of the American system, or that of his own failure to persevere?

More speeches

The speeches were overall pretty good. While some speeches had their flaws, and sometimes I had strong and general rebuttals that were not addressed in any way during some of the speeches, I found that the majority of the speeches either never had those errors or made up for them with charismatic speaking, eye contact, and rather touching appeals to pathos.

Now I will blog about some specific speeches. Sammie did the poor house. It was a great speech. The appeal to pathos was intense. When she was done I felt compelled to donate to her cause.

Mathew Ciulla made an excellent speech on boyscouts of America. I found this speech to be particularly interesting because of his charismatic nature and insight into the purpose of his organization. He illustrated the need for boyscouts of America. He stated that the true purpose of boyscouts of America was to establish a father figure for orphans, those who had been abandoned, those neglected by their fathers, and even for those who had been blessed with great fathers, it was to help them manage their lives, learn to be honorable and to obey the rules, and to learn the skills and confidence necessary to become successful. 

Speeches today

The speeches today were interesting. Colin's speech was rather enthralling. he used silence and pauses in his speech in the attempt to draw the desired emotion from the reader and he used few and powerful words to ensure that the listener could understand the meaning of what he was saying. He used statistics to appeal to ethos, establishing a firm connection with the reader. With evidence at hand, Colin was able to force the reader to accept what was happening in the world, and maintained the underlying assertion that his cause is worth donating to. After hearing his speech it was absolutely clear to me what Second Helpings desires to do, and how they help people in need. Colin also did a good job of ensuring that the listener was given an unbiased view of the evidence that he was using to support his claim. Often, when seemingly outrageous statistics are used, listeners reject them, believing them to have been manipulated for the sole purpose of promoting the cause. Colin countered this natural rebellion by introducing the statistics from both angles by first putting them into perspective with a percent, and then quantifying them with the large number that is incumbent of translating any substantial percent to a number in America. 

Jim Ray's speech was the best.

Speech progress

My speech is progressing very well. I have written the entire speech. My speech is very awesome. It had something to do with the Toulmin system. When I finished my speech, i was very happy. I should get an A on the speech for being done so early. Now I will blog about some of the difficulties I had in writing my speech. 

I had difficulties in discovering information about my charity because it is relatively new, and therefor valuable information like success statistics, student stories, and interviews were scarce if if present at all. I eventually found all of the information that I needed through diligent searching and evaluating information.

While my speech is already written, throughout the course of the week I plan to revise and edit it so that it is flawless when presented. As all great writers know, few things come out perfectly the first time; however, Mozart did this and was recognized for his musical genius. 

Speech I have to do

There is an old chinese proverb 

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." 

For my organization to help the impoverished and misled America, I chose Providence Cristo Rey High School. This school, designed for the impoverished, teaches not only essential skills such as Math, Science, and Literature, but it also inspires great hope and self-esteem in students by teaching them essential job hunting skills, basic work ethic, has them wear nice clothing to class, and works out deals with companies to allow students to spend one day a week working a real job, which helps them pay off their tuition. While other non-profit organizations can provide money, clothing, and shelter to those in need, none can truly compare to the opportunities that these students are provided. Many students like this come from families who never had hope for a decent job themselves, and never taught their children that dreams can be worth pursuing. In this high school, that can be done. One graduate even went so far as to state that neither his mother nor his father graduated high school, and that his father had dealt with construction his entire life. Before going there, he explained, was to drop out of high school and go into construction like his father. Over the course of his education, however, while he admits it was not easy, he said that he felt like he could pursue dreams higher than he had thought possible and instead of dropping out of high school, said he wanted to go on to college to further his education. This illustrates the utter importance of what this school is doing. While as of now it can only hold 500 students, it provokes the realization in them that they are not doomed to relive the impoverished life of their parents; it provides them with the experience they need to find and work in formal white collar jobs, and it is one small step to help repair america and allows the graduates, and possibly, even the graduates' children, to understand that poverty is not irreversible and that America might not be as cruel as they or their parents thought it to be.

The undeniable concept that separates this organization from the rest, is that simply giving money to the homeless and dropping pennies in the hobo's cup helps him only until people run out of spare change. At this school, the children who came from impoverished families, will never lose the skills and hope they gained there. They will be able to take care of themselves and their families for a lifetime. 

Emerson

In the reading, Emerson argues that in order to be successful, an individual must maintain their own characteristics and resist the demand to conform to society. He believes that conform is the downfall of success in society because in conforming to what others wish to see in you, you are sacrificing the potential personalized achievements that you could have reached. Emerson also mentions that maintaining the same views is bad. While others wish an individual to maintain their views so that they can be defined, Emerson believes that frequently changing views depending on the circumstances is important. Although it is important to note Emerson's ideas here, most of the time success is only paired with a bit of both conform and individuality. In today's society, for example, a person can only be successful if others will allow them to be. If a person were to follow Emerson's example with the idea that if he maintains his lack of conformity, he will be successful, and his idea of success is sitting around all day and doing nothing, but receiving a large salary and benefits, that person will likely not reach his idea of success. That person must instead maintain the idea, but conform to something society appreciates. He could do this by going to Law School, and becoming a Congressman, where his job would be much the same as described, but his occasional voting would earn him the appreciation and wealth that is generally accepted as success. 

wealthy and poor

I think that this article is implying that the wealthy are taking advantage of the poor, but in any argument, it is important to analyze the basis of the points being taken. While this article attempts to appear in an impartial context, the fact that it was written suggests that it wishes to convince someone to change something and have an impact on the world. Because an article arguing against the point that the rich are in favor of the poor would only appear beneficial as a rebuttal to an opposing argument, I justly assume that the article intends to open the reader's mind to the possibility that the rich are taking advantage of the poor. This, however, must be defined further if it should be later analyzed. There is no clear definition of what taking advantage of something is. Take a high paying profession such as a medical Doctor for example. The article mentions the statistic that those with higher SAT scores get higher paying jobs. This is very important because SAT scores reflect the intelligence of an individual and his or her ability to reason and learn. The intelligence required to get these scores would allow the individual to go and learn from medical school, ultimately striving to save lives. By the time this man becomes a doctor, at around age 30, it is only just that he is paid more and rewarded for his perseverance.  If he were not paid more than other jobs that required less education, then he would have never put himself in the position of a doctor in the first place. Who would want to perform open heart surgery at $7.50 an hour, not to mention pay to learn how. The rich and the poor are ultimately determined through the analysis of ability and knowledge and there is no way to change that and maintain the honest integrity of the system. Even with an unfairly based system though, the poor are not being taken advantage of. While the rich do need the poor to operate, the poor also need the rich. Without the poor, the rich would have messy homes, no corn to eat, and would be forced to eat indoors for the rest of their lives, and without the rich, the poor would be far more subject to disease and technology would be significantly retrogressed. In a working society, it is necessary that both the rich and the poor do their part to keep it running, and it is unfortunate, but necessary that the rich are rewarded for their education and perseverance to help the world. 

Cruz/Ragged

Steven Cruz's story shares similar themes with Ragged Dick, offering the main character the same opportunities, but in Steven Cruz's story, instead of just happily accepting his good fortune and high paying job, the main character becomes extremely concerned with the fact that he likely only received the job that he did as a result of his Mexican race. For Ragged Dick, the story ended here, he accepted that fact that some luck was involved in his success and embraced his new life of riches. The protagonist of Steven Cruz's story concerns himself so greatly with the unfairness and hypocrisy of his position that he ends up quitting the high paying jobs that are offered to him, sacrificing his success for his cause. Both of the stories seem to agree that success in America is determined by some element of luck, but the stories separate in that Dick embraced his look and looked upon it as a product of his success, while Cruz's character had the luck to be successful, but in the attempt to maintain fairness, declined it.